| Original Full Text | Southern Illinois University Carbondale OpenSIUC SCHROEDER Creative Works 6-2024 Theodore Schroeder: My Life as a First Amendment Crusader and Pioneer Evolutionary Psychologist Theodore Schroeder John Haller Jr. Southern Illinois University Carbondale Follow this and additional works at: https://opensiuc.lib.siu.edu/histcw_schroeder edited by John S. Haller, Jr. Recommended Citation Schroeder, Theodore and Haller, John Jr. "Theodore Schroeder: My Life as a First Amendment Crusader and Pioneer Evolutionary Psychologist." (Jun 2024). This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Creative Works at OpenSIUC. It has been accepted for inclusion in SCHROEDER by an authorized administrator of OpenSIUC. For more information, please contact opensiuc@lib.siu.edu. By Theodore Schroeder Edited by John S. Haller, Jr. 1 for Jon, Kirsa, Arvo, Elio, and Oona 2 Human motives and mental mechanisms are not altered when one assumes the judicial function. If the judicial decision is controlled as other human acts, then the judicial conduct is also determined by a chain of causation running back to the earliest infancy. (Theodore Schroeder, “The Psychologic Study of Judicial Opinions,” California Law Review, 1918) 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………..4 LIFE CHART OF THEODORE SCHROEDER…………………5 PROLOGUE………………………………………….…………10 INTRODUCTION………………………………………………16 CHAPTERS 1. Wanderlust Years: 1864-1889……………..………..25 2. Stormy Utah Years: 1889-1900…………….……....40 3. New York City Years: 1901-1914…………….……60 4. Psychoanalysis: 1914-1915…..…………………….92 5. My Life as a Libertarian: 1915-1953..…….……….113 APPENDIX…………………………………………………….167 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………………..….170 4 Acknowledgments Ralph E. McCoy, dean of libraries and professor of journalism at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale from 1955 until his retirement in 1976, built one of the premier collections in the United States. From books and manuscripts on the Irish Renaissance and modern theater to modern philosophy, Religious Humanism, and First Amendment crusaders like Theodore Schroeder, he managed to bring together under one roof some of the finest collections of private papers in the English-speaking world. Today, this fine collection's management is in the hands of a resourceful dean and staff that includes Aaron Lisec, Anne Marie Hamilton-Brehm, Nicholas Guardiano, Matt Gorzalski, Walter Ray, and Tony Bittle. Special thanks go to my friend and colleague, Michael Flannery, professor emeritus of the University of Alabama Birmingham Libraries, for his reading of the manuscript and his genuinely helpful advice and attentiveness over the years to my research. Our frequent conversations range far and near over the historical, philosophical, and cultural landscapes of American History. To my colleagues David Werlich, Howard Allen, John Dotson, David Wilson, and James Allen, I raise my glass of ale. I am also appreciative to JSTOR, ProQuest, WorldCat, Google Books, and the Hathi Trust for their facilitation of books, articles, and other essential materials. Finally, I thank my wife, Robin, for preparing the index. Her critical eye and caring nature over nearly sixty years have made each of my books a useful tool and roadmap for the discerning reader. 5 LIFE CHART OF THEODORE SCHROEDER 1835 Father Theodor Jacob Schroeder is born in the city of Schwerin, Germany 1843 Joseph Smith receives revelation approving celestial marriage Mother Barbara (maiden name unknown) is born to Catholic parents near Cologne 1844 Joseph Smith announces his candidacy for U.S. President The murder of Joseph Smith the ‘Prophet’ and brother Hyrum by an angry mob at Nauvoo, Illinois Brigham Young marries Smith’s polygamous widows 1848 Revolution in Germany 1850 U. S. Government establishes the Utah Territory 1852 Polygamy canonized as scripture 1853 Salt Lake Temple construction begins 1857 Mountain Meadows Massacre 1862 Congress abolishes polygamy 1864 Theodore Albert Schroeder was born on a farm near Horicon, Wisconsin 1866 Father sells the farm and moves to Watertown, Wisconsin 1873 New York Society for the Suppression of Vice incorporated 1874 Poland Act against polygamy 1875 Father buys a horse and phaeton 1877 Works during summer months in general store in Juneau, Wisconsin 1878 Works during summer months in a sash, door, and blind factory 1879 Works during summer months for a shoe store and law office Leaves home at fifteen to find a job in Chicago 1880 Works in Chicago 1881 Tries unsuccessfully to enter the University of Wisconsin 1882 Parents move to Redfield, Dakota Territory Enters the University of Wisconsin during the Spring Term Spends summer months with railroad surveying crew near Redfield Edmunds Act strengthens prohibition against polygamy 1883 Works during summer months with a railroad surveying crew in North Dakota 1884 Works during summer months with a railroad surveying crew 1885 Visits Utah Territory during summer months leading a railroad surveying crew Travels to Montana by pony 1886 Graduates with a degree in civil engineering from the University of Wisconsin Works with a railroad surveying crew Travels to San Francisco 1887 Attends law school Works during summer months with a railroad surveying crew 1888 Attends law school Works during summer months with a railroad surveying crew 1889 Graduates from the University of Wisconsin Law School Moves to Salt Lake City, Utah, and practices law for the next ten years Admitted to Utah Territorial Bar Forms Stephens and Schroeder law partnership; lasts until 1892 Elder B. H. Roberts elects to the House of Representatives 6 1891 Marries Mary Parkinson of Madison, Wisconsin Publishes article against Patriotic Order of Sons of America 1892 Homestead Strike in Pittsburgh Seeks U.S. District Attorney position Elected Chairman of the Democratic City Committee in Salt Lake City 1893 Forms Jones and Schroeder law partnership; lasts until 1899 Licensed as a notary public Salt Lake City Mormon Temple dedicated 1895 Mormon church prohibits leaders from running for political office without church approval Appointed an elections judge for the first precinct 1896 Utah statehood approved Actively supports Mormon Apostle Moses Thatcher for U.S. Senate and Brigham H. Roberts for U.S. House of Representatives His wife Mary Parkinson dies and his daughter Theodora is sent to live with grandparents in Madison, Wisconsin 1897 Publishes The Gospel Concerning Church and State Publishes Mormonism Considered Publishes The Free Lance Society and the Churches 1898 Lucifer’s Lantern: A Parrchesiam Periodical about Peculiar People first published and continues for nine issues Publishes Some Facts Concerning Polygamy 1899 Forms Reves and Schroeder law partnership; lasts until 1901 Initial discussions with Josiah Strong regarding employment in New York City Wilford Woodruff issues manifesto ending polygamy; not a revelation Elder Brigham H. Roberts elected to the House of Representatives 1900 Publishes Polygamy in Congress Publishes Thoughts on the Mormon Problem and Its Solution 1901 Daughter Theodora dies following unsuccessful appendectomy Mother dies Moves to New York City to practice law House of Representatives creates special committee to investigate B. H. Roberts Leads the prosecution of B. H. Roberts in the committee hearings House of Representatives refuses to seat B. H. Roberts Publishes The Origin of the Book of Mormon 1902 Father Theodor dies 1903 Reed Smoot, a Mormon Apostle, is elected by the Utah State Legislature for Senate 1904 Second polygamy Manifesto clarifies the end of polygamy Supports Reed Smoot for U.S. Senate and later opposes him Retires from practicing law and begins writing Publishes Culture and Culturine 1905 Joins Free Speech League of New York Publishes The Case of Senator Smoot Assists in defense of Moses Harman Publishes The Evolution of Marriage Ideals 7 Publishes Our Vanishing Liberty of the Press Publishes The Impurity of Divorce Suppression Publishes A Reply to a Defense of Mormons and an Attack Upon the Ministerial Association of Utah 1906 Speaks at a convention of the National Purity Federation in Chicago Publishes Polygamy and the Constitution Publishes Freedom of the Press and Obscene Literature Publishes A Much Needed Defense for Liberty of Conscience, Speech, and Press Publishes Paternal Legislation: A Study of Liberty Publishes Psychic Lasciviousness and ‘Purity’ Legislation Publishes A Question of Mormon Patriotism Publishes What is Criminally ‘Obscene’? Publishes A Unique Heathen 1907 Police suppression of meetings held by Emma Goldman Newton L.A. Eastman is prosecuted for publishing and circulating obscene matter titled ‘The Open Door to Hell’ Publishes The Criminal Anarchy Law and Suppressing the Advocacy of Crime Publishes What is Purity? A Study of Sex Overvaluation 1908 Began living with feminist Nancy Eleanor Sankey-Jones of New York City Moves with Nancy E. Sankey-Jones to Cos Cob, Connecticut Publishes Due Process of Law in Relation to Statutory Uncertainty and Constructive Offences Publishes The Religious and Secular Distinguished Publishes The Scientific Aspect of due Process of Law and Constructive Crimes Publishes Unconstitutionality of All Laws Against ‘Obscene’ Literature 1909 Publishes Censorship of Sex Literature Publishes Free Speech Anthology Publishes The Fight for Free Speech Publishes A Psychological Study of Modesty 1910 Publishes The Historical Interpretation of Unabridged Freedom of Speech Publishes The Etiology and Development of Our Censorship of Sex-Literature Publishes The Gospel Concerning Church and State Publishes Liberal Opponents and Conservative Friends of Unabridged Free Speech Publishes Methods of Constitutional Construction 1911 Helps establish the Free Speech League Publishes Obscene Literature and Constitutional Law, a Forensic Defense of Freedom of the Press Publishes Erskine on the Limits of Toleration Publishes Protest of the Free Speech League against the Passage of Senate Bill No 1790, Assembly Bill No. 650, New York Legislature Publishes Table of Cases Involving Obscenity and Kindred Statutes Publishes Why: ‘Obscene’ Literature and Constitutional Law 1912 Free Speech League assists Margaret Sanger Publishes Secularism and the Churches 8 Publishes Witchcraft and Obscenity, Twin Superstitions 1913 Publishes Erotogenesis of Religion: Developing a Working Hypothesis Publishes On Liberty of the Press for Advocating Resistance to Government Publishes Tabooed Aspects of Suffrage Discussion 1914 Spends winter months in Washington D.C. to begin psychoanalysis under guidance of Dr. William A. White Publishes The Erotogenetic Interpretation of Religion: Its Opponents Reviewed Publishes The Wildisbusch Crucified Saint 1915 Continues psychoanalysis under Dr. William A. White Publishes Liberty Through Impersonal Service Publishes Martyrs or Criminals Publishes Presumptions and Burdens of Proof as to Malice in Criminal Libel 1916 Publishes Erotogenesis of Religion: A Bibliography Publishes Free Speech for Radicals 1917 Free Speech League defends freedom of expression in wartime Publishes Criminology and Social Psychology Publishes The Meaning of Free Speech Publishes Hours with a Revivalist Publishes Psychic Aspects of Social Evolution Publishes A Psychological Study of Judicial Opinion 1918 Publishes Blasphemy and Free Speech Publishes Constitutional Free Speech Defined and Defended Publishes Heavenly Bridegrooms Publishes List of References on Birth Control Publishes Mental Hygiene for Non-Combatants Publishes the Philosopher’s Wail of Slakery 1919 Publishes Authorship of the Book of Mormon Publishes Determinism, Conduct, and Fear Psychology Publishes Law of Blasphemy Publishes Anarchism and ‘The Lord’s Farm;’ Record of a Social Experiment Publishes The Psychologic Aspect of Free Association 1920 Free Speech League dissolved American Civil Liberties Union was founded by Helen Keller, Jane Addams, and Roger Nash Baldwin Publishes Christian Science and Sex Publishes Intellectual Liberty and Literary Style 1921 Publishes “Secularized Mystics” in The Open Court Publishes Are All Radicals Insane? Publishes Herd Impulse. Democratization and Evolutionary Psychology Publishes Shaker Celibacy and Salacity, Psychologically Interpreted Publishes Emotional Conflict, Liberty, and Authority Publishes Psychology of One Pantheist 1922 Publishes The Bishop of the Bolsheviks and Atheists Publishes A Scientific Approach to Religious Psychology Publishes Free Speech Bibliography Publishes No Reference Library Can Afford to be Without Real Free Speech 9 Books by Theodore Schroeder Publishes Psychologic Aspect of Birth Control Considered in Relation to Mental Hygiene Publishes Some Difficulties and Problems of the Psychologists of Religion 1923 Production of The God of Vengeance, a play about prostitution Publishes Phallic Worship to a Secularized Sex Publishes Psychoanalysis and Suggestion 1924 Publishes Concerning the Heresy Trial of Rt. Rev. William Montgomery Brown Publishes Psychogenetics of Androcratic Evolution 1925 Publishes The Riddles in Bishop Brown’s Heresy Case Publishes Censors and Psychopaths Publishes The Psycho-Analytic Method of Observation Publishes Religious ‘Love in Action’ 1927 Spends winter months in the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico Publishes Manufacturing ‘The Experience of God’ Publishes Sex and Censorship: The Eternal Conflict 1928 Publishes Al Smith, the Pope, and the Presidency 1932 Makes case for addressing Puerto Rico’s overpopulation problems 1933 ACLU challenges censorship of James Joyce’s Ulysses Publishes The Conflict of Impulses Publishes Converting Sex into Religiosity 1935 Attends the reunion for the Class of 1885 where he gives a presentation on his accomplishments and his writings concerning the Mormons 1936 Publishes A New Philosophy of Life Publishes One Religio-Sexual Maniac 1937 Publishes Nationalism, Religious, and Radical Hatred 1938 Publishes The Challenge to Sex Censors 1939 Attacks Franklin D. Roosevelt for failure to address the needs of the Virgin Islands 1940 Ordained minister by the Humanist Society of Friends Publishes A New Concept of Liberty from an Evolutionary Psychologist 1941 Publishes The Individual Initiative of an Evolutionary Psychologist Described 1942 Publishes Conservatisms, Liberalisms, and Radicalism and the New Psychology 1944 Publishes Thumbnail Essays: On the Psychology of War and Peace Publishes Where Speech is Not Free—In the U.S.A. 1945 Publishes Thomas Paine Publishes May It Please the Court Publishes The Psychologist on Wage Arbitration Publishes Secularism and Religiosity 1948 Publishes May It Please the Court 1949 Publishes Evolutionary Psychology Publishes Thumbnail Essays: Samples of Unusual Thinking by an Evolutionary Psychoanalyst 1950 Nancy Eleanor Sankey-Jones dies 1951 Publishes What About You? 1952 Prepares last Will and Testament 1953 Dies at Cos Cob 10 Prologue In The Life of Reason (1905), philosopher George Santayana made the often-quoted remark: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” Exemplary of this, in recent years, a depressing number of Americans have chosen to anoint themselves as authorities on what their fellow citizens, including students at all levels of education, ought and ought not to be reading. They have chosen to legislate by book banning, and in some cases, book burning, subject matter determined in their minds to be uncomfortable for those they claim to represent. This includes books like Judy Blume’s Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret, Toni Morrison’s Beloved, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, John Irving’s The Cider House Rules, Courtney Farrell’s The Abortion Debate, William Styron’s The Confessions of Nat Turner, Roberta Edwards’s Who is Barack Obama? Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz’s An Indigenous People’s History of the United States, and E. L. James’s Fifty Shades of Grey. Each of these books has become an unwanted story that preachers, bigots, and right-wing governors, senators, and representatives decided in their wisdom to exclude from the public’s eye because of what they interpret to be their destructive long-term impact on society. We have seen this behavior before. Banning books—including burning them—has existed for centuries. In 213 B.C., Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang burned books in the belief that thought could be regulated through governmental control. Replications of that behavior were repeated on May 6, 1933, when Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute of Sexology in Germany was occupied and its books removed, and it happened again four days later when university students in thirty-four towns across Germany stoked bonfires with thousands of library books to advance Nazi ideology. In 1988, thousands of protesters gathered in Bradford, UK, to burn copies of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses, followed days later by Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini’s issuing a fatwa ordering Rushdie’s death. More recently, the Tennessee pastor and conspiracy theorist, Greg Locke, led his followers to incinerate J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter books because she depicted magic, witchcraft, and the use of “spells” to achieve things. Censorship, however, applied or disguised in made-up words such as “critical race theory,” is a reflection of the whims and mindset of those in power, or those aspiring to it, by appealing to a society’s worst instincts. In some states, it has escalated to politically motivated curriculum oversight, intimidation, forced resignations of faculty, staff, and administrators, and outright firings. Rather than encourage public discourse to address the daunting issues of our time (i.e., gun violence, systemic racism, gender equality, climate change, and the widening gap between rich and poor), removing books from library shelves, school reading lists, and bookstores, is perceived as the most effective way to protect society. But if we, as a people, are prevented from exploring ideas, however diverse or disturbing to some, how can we in a free and democratic society use our thinking skills to ask questions, form opinions, and make reasoned judgments? There have been numerous advocates of First Amendment rights in American history, but none has been as unrelenting in its most literal interpretation as the lawyer, writer, and psychoanalyst Theodore Schroeder. The First Amendment to the Constitution states that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” Schroeder’s interpretation of the free speech clause in the amendment was uncompromising and exceptionally 11 clear-sighted, i.e., “By freedom of speech I do not mean the right to agree with the majority, but the right to say with impunity anything and everything which anyone chooses to say, and to speak it with impunity so long as no actual material injury results to anyone, and when it results then to punish only for the contribution to that material injury and not for the mere speech as such.”1 As one of the founders of the Free Speech League, the forerunner of the American Civil Liberties Union, Schroeder defended many prominent individuals, including Bishop William Montgomery Brown, anarchist Emma Goldman, and birth control advocate Margaret Sanger; fought strenuously against the Comstock laws and the Mormon practice of polygamy; and insisted on protecting all aspects of the Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights. He was a conservative libertarian who believed that free speech is an individual right and expected the judicial system to protect it from desecration by autocrats as well as by democratically empowered majorities. A bibliography of his writings shows the breadth of his interests: Mormonism, free speech, church and state, psychoanalysis, and evolutionary psychology applied to philosophy, religiosity, sex, law, criminology, sociology, wage-arbitration, split personality, mental hygiene, and the amoral attitude. Although many of his books faced harsh criticism and were banned from many libraries, others, particularly his bibliographies and legal analyses, became important resources used in American colleges, universities, and law schools. These include Freedom of the Press and Obscene Literature (1906), Due Process of Law in Relation to Statutory Uncertainty and Constructive Offenses (1908), The Fight for Free Speech (1909), ‘Obscene’ Literature and Constitutional Law (1911), Secularism and the Churches, (1912), Free Speech Bibliography (1922), and A Challenge to Sex Censors (1938). Schroeder is equally important for his contribution to the history of science. Specifically, he was a pioneer in the application of psycho-sexual maturing and psycho-social evolution in law, criminology, sociology, economics, and education to further what he hoped would be the democratization of American thought and culture. Evolutionary psychology, the tool that Schroeder sought to apply in these areas, and to life in general, is the scientific study of the body’s cognitive and behavioral mechanisms which, like physical traits, not only respond to different threats but develop defenses necessary to survive new and ongoing challenges. It represents the integration of cognitive psychology with evolutionary biology to explain and interpret human behavior such as sexual attraction, taboos, jealousy, aggression, reasoning, and other such traits. Advocates of evolutionary psychology view it not as a separate branch of psychology but as an integral aspect of all its branches—an organizing or unifying principle connecting psychology’s distinct fields and sub-divisions. Charles Darwin not only supplied the mechanism of natural selection to explain the process by which populations of living organisms adapt and change, but used it to account for the development of the emotions, mental faculties, expressions, and behavior in the lower animals and man. As an empiricist, Darwin could not ignore the claims of psychology, a discipline that had been tied to varying forms of supernaturalism, and that only recently emerged from the shadows of philosophy. He foresaw that much of what had previously been explained in terms of armchair metaphysics could be better understood in his radical new cosmology—where organisms were shaped by selective pressures from changing environmental constraints. Natural selection was built on solutions to adaptive problems through the retention of modifications of specific pre-existing 1 Theodore Schroeder, Free Speech for Radicals (New York: Free Speech League, 1912), 20. 12 traits. This included the brain, which developed over time via thousands of behavioral adaptations, to allow the body to survive physical and social pressures. These were psychological traits adopted because of environmental demands that altered the life-history traits of individuals and populations. As Darwin explained in Origin of Species (1859), “In the distant future I see open fields for far more important research. Psychology will be based on a new foundation, that of the necessary acquirement of each mental power and capacity by gradation. Light will be thrown on the origin of man and his history.”2 Darwin reiterated his intentions more fully in Descent of Man (1871) when he wrote that his object was “to show that there is no fundamental difference between man and the higher mammals in their mental faculties. . . . . The difference in mind between man and the higher animals, great as it is, certainly is one of degree and not of kind.”3 These words became the building blocks for generations of subsequent evolutionists to explain how characteristics such as compassion, love, the sense of justice, sympathy, conscience, guilt, empathy, morality, and civility shared a common genetic basis and therefore were subject to the same forces that applied to the organism. As explained by Robert Wright in The Moral Animal (1994), “all influences on human behavior, environmental as well as hereditary, are mediated biologically.” Just as evolution by natural selection became the guiding theory for the field of biology, for the evolutionary psychologist, it was considered the only acceptable causal process able to produce the physiological and psychological mechanisms or adaptations leading to the differences in human behavior across populations and cultures.4 William Alanson White, the individual who introduced Schroeder to evolutionary psychology, sought the use of Freudian psychoanalysis to keep psychology away from metaphysical abstractions, steering it toward physiology. He hoped this new psychology would be taught in medical schools to address different psychoses. He viewed man as a biological unit and not as an association of independent parts. The psyche, like other functions of life, was the product of individual and racial development, with psychoanalysis the technique for discovering and uncovering its history. As White explained, It is no longer sufficient to consider some single aspect of human functioning alone and by itself; it has to be related to the problem of the whole individual, considered from the standpoint of the goal of the individual as a whole, rather than the immediate object of the function. Man is pre-eminently a social animal and the struggle for existence and for fulfillment has become, more than ever before, a struggle at psychological and social levels: he must then be considered from these standpoints to understand what is taking place. 5 2 Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species (London: John Murray, 1859), 488. 3 Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man (2 vols.; London, John Murray, 1871), I, 35. 4 Robert Wright, The Moral Animal (New York: Vintage Books, 1994), 349. 5 William A. White, Mechanisms of Character Formation: An Introduction to Psychoanalysis (New York: The Macmillan Co., 1916), i-ii, 334. 13 Immediately after undergoing psychoanalysis by White in the winter of 1914-15, Schroeder adopted evolutionary psychology as his guiding principle, thereby becoming one of its earliest pioneers. Having identified it as both a physical and psychological process used by the individual and the race to survive, he predicted that evolutionary psychology would enter the family of sciences and, in all probability, “produce an intellectual war that will be more destructive of our accepted social and ‘spiritual’ values and standards than that produced by Charles Darwin and his Origin of Species, nearly a century ago.”6 Schroeder was fond of aligning himself with English physician and psychologist Havelock Ellis, and psychologist and educator G. Stanley Hall, as well as White. While influenced by Sigmund Freud, he preferred to attribute his allegiance to White because of their closeness in age, their advocacy for the humane treatment of prisoners, and their preference for genetic psychology. Nonetheless, “Dr. Schroeder,” as he was often addressed, was a neophyte whose entry into the field of psychology and psychoanalysis occurred concurrently with the professionalization of the discipline. Despite his lack of degrees in either medicine or psychology, he felt empowered to perform psychoanalysis in both face-to-face encounters and also via the mail. [See Appendix A] Schroeder considered himself capable of understanding not only the full measure of evolutionary psychology but assumed to be true which, for many, are still contested concepts. As psychology moved toward greater professionalization, he found that his articles, heretofore accepted in the major psychological journals alongside Freud, Carl Jung, Isador Coriat, and Karen Horney, were being returned by editors who questioned his grasp of the discipline. In the absence of the relevant degrees, a teaching position, and disciples to carry forth his ideas, he was eventually forced to seek lesser-known journals and magazines for his writings, and even underwrite the publication of his books. Only a few individuals, such as Arnold Maddoloni (who underwent “lay analysis” from Schroeder), thought enough of his ideas to establish an Institute for Evolutionary Psychology in 1950 to advance his work. It, too, proved to be unsuccessful.7 To be honest, Schroeder was not a particularly likable person. He was arrogant, contemptuous, distrustful of the common man, and driven by a sordid self-interest. He had a narcissistic personality and repeatedly demonstrated an exaggerated sense of his importance. Convinced of his genius, he offered his opinions, theories, and critiques to Presidents Woodrow Wilson, Herbert Hoover, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Harry S. Truman, Secretary of Interior Harold Ickes, Eleanor Roosevelt, Secretary of War George H. Dern, Nicholas Murray Butler at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and numerous senators and representatives. Among his many claims, he offered to end papal imperialism; negotiate a settlement between Leon Trotsky and Stalin over the legitimacy of each other’s form of Leninism; reform the process for appointing Supreme Court Justices; write new editorial policies for the Harvard Theological Review; request an appointment to a judgeship or governorship in either the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico; and even sought authorization to reexamine the Lytton Commission Report on the Mukden Incident which had led to Japan’s seizure of Manchuria. Late in his life, Schroeder considered writing his autobiography and collected documents to use for it. Considering that his output was extraordinary, publishing in more than one hundred seventy magazines in six different languages, the challenge was daunting. Also included among 6 Theodore Schroeder, “Evolutionary Psychology and a New War,” in Theodore Schroeder Papers, SIUC Special Collections, MSS017, Series 3, Box 40. 7 Arnold Maddaloni, “Two Liberalisms: A Study in Contrasts,” Evolutionary Theory, 2 (1952), 177-85. 14 the materials were copies of his books and comments made by both friends and enemies as well as by people he “created” to elaborate on one or more aspects of his life. Altogether, he compiled multiple drafts of his intended opus but never seemed satisfied with any single version. Failing ultimately to put his recollections to paper, he made arrangements for his friend, poet, and educator Ethel Clyde, to “ghostwrite” his autobiography or simply write his biography. In either case, he left a myriad of notes, articles, newspaper clippings, and published and unpublished essays intended for her use. On April 16, 1952, Schroeder wrote his last will, making the Fidelity Title and Trust Company in Stamford, Connecticut, his executor. When he died of coronary thrombosis at the age of eighty-eight at his farm in Cos Cob on February 10, 1953, his will stipulated that all his possessions be given to Lesley Kuhn of New York City and Ethel Clyde of Huntington, New York. He wanted Kuhn and Clyde to use the money from the sale of his estate, which was valued at $47,000, including his ten-room farmhouse and sixty acres of wooded land, to pay for the organization of his notes, books, papers, scrapbooks, and correspondence, all of which covered sixty-five years of activities; invite scholars to serve as an advisory board to consider what should be included in a definitive edition of his works; have the board assist Ethel Clyde in gathering material for the biography; and place the definitive edition of Schroeder’s works on the market as well as supply them to American and foreign institutions of learning. According to the provisions in the will, any monies that remained were to support Maddaloni’s Institute for Evolutionary Psychology. None of these wishes was carried out because Hortense Schroeder Hawkes and Caroline Schroeder Warden, distant cousins of Schroeder, contested the will by placing a claim on his estate. In their appeal to the courts, they argued that “his books and articles were irrational, undisciplined, unscientific, unoriginal and anti-religious. Furthermore, it would be not only a waste of the residuary estate but contrary to public policy to carry out his wishes and publish his books.” During a two-day trial in Superior Court in Fairfield, Connecticut, Judge Alfred V. Covello ruled in favor of the cousins and invalidated Schroeder’s will. “An examination of the writings of the deceased indicates that there is no social improvement to be had from their publication, or that they will produce even a slight social advantage,” explained the judge. “On the contrary, they offend religion and extol anti-social ideas.” When Clyde and Kuhn appealed to the Supreme Court of Errors, Judge Patrick O’Sullivan reaffirmed the lower court’s ruling. “The law will not declare a trust valid when the object of the trust, as the finding discloses, is to distribute articles which reek of the sewer.” While Schroeder might not have been surprised by the decision, given his low opinion of judicial opinion-making, the sheer irony is difficult to ignore. The judicial decisions that authorized the overturning of his will represented everything that Schroeder despised in the court system, namely, decisions based not on principles of law but the outcome of immature judicial minds.8 The one bright spot in the entire ordeal was that Schroeder’s friend, Arnold Maddaloni, purchased the entire Schroeder library for a mere $100 from the two cousins, who wanted nothing to do with the collection. Maddaloni then sold the collection to the Morris Library at Southern Illinois University Carbondale where it safely resides. Except for an excellent Brandeis dissertation written in 1971 by David Brudnoy titled “Liberty’s Bugler: The Seven Ages of Theodore Schroeder,” and another in 1986 by Anne Caughlin at Fuller Theological Seminary on Schroeder’s 8 Quoted in Lesley Kuhn (editor), Theodore Schroeder’s Last Will (New York: Psychological Library Publishers, 1958), 25. 15 sexual dogmatics, there is no published biography as Schroeder had intended.9 While searches on the Internet reveal multiple entries referencing his involvement in issues related to the First Amendment and evolutionary psychology, the lack of a memoir or a biography leaves the reader with many unanswered questions. Instead of using the materials that Schroeder had assembled to write a straightforward biography of his life, or provide an edited selection of his writings, I chose the path of creative nonfiction, believing I could piece together the published and unpublished writings he had selected for his autobiography and to do so with sufficient craftsmanship to provide the interested reader with an honest interpretation of what it might have looked like had he or Ethel Clyde written it. The book is intended for a general reading audience, but also for those whose careers are in law, politics, psychology, medicine, and library science, as well as students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate courses. It tells a story whose content is real and fact-based, and using Schroeder’s selection of materials that he felt best explained his beliefs. There should be no doubt that the words in the book are his. That is because he wrote principally in the first person, not the third. As editor, I assumed the responsibility for shaping, condensing, and where necessary, rewriting to make transitions from one topic to another and improve the grammar to make it more understandable to present-day readers. I have also added footnotes to identify individuals and entities that Schroeder identified without comment or explanation. Mostly, however, the book is in Schroeder’s own words. However, like all books of this nature, it is subject to exaggerations as well as omissions. I leave the reader to judge whether or not it represents an honest accounting of Schroeder’s commitment to social justice and the use and abuse of power personally and institutionally. Hopefully, it will help us understand who he was, where he came from, what mattered to him, and why. 9 David Brudnoy, “Liberty’s Bugler: The Seven Ages of Theodore Schroeder” (Waltham, MA: Ph. D. Dissertation, Brandeis University, 1971); Anne Caughlin, “A Unique Heathen: The Sexual Dogmatics of Theodore Schroeder,” (Pasadena, CA: Ph.D. Dissertation, Fuller Theological Seminar, 1986). 16 Introduction My name is Theodore Albert Schroeder and by way of introducing myself, I want to tell you a little about my road to freedom. You may find that my way of seeing and saying things is like eating olives; it requires a specially acquired taste. I hope that soon you will have such as taste for my particular brand of olives and condiments. When you have acquired that taste, and indulge in it, you will find your mental digestion much improved. I have been called a “maverick psychologist,” and maybe I ought to plead guilty. However, that only means that I am an evolutionary psychologist and there are not many of us—not yet. I am not going to impose upon you any technical statement of the differences between that and other psychological theories. I only wish to focus your attention on the label—evolutionary psychology. If I can fix your attention there, then you will be able to fill in the picture yourself when, in the future, I use words that imply my more detailed evolutionary concept. Now let me tell you a little more about myself and my attitude toward life. I am inclined to agree with the fellow who said: “This world is an insane asylum to which the inhabitants of the other planets send all of their lunatics.” Yes! Everybody is queer but me and thee. Maybe the trouble will begin when I try to prove that sometimes thee is a little queer too. But, don’t take it too hard—if you can help it. After a while, you will learn to like it, even as many people learn to like olives. Exercise the kind of courage that was required for the first man who ate an oyster and you too may discover a new supply of fine intellectual food. Yes! I am going to be irritating—damned irritating at times—to some of you. That depends upon the degree of irritability that you carry around with you as a part of your emotional indigestion. It may be that regular doses of my new philosophy of life will eventually relieve you of some of your emotional indigestion. Try it! At least you can experience the pleasure of finding something new and important to “bellyache” about. That will compensate for any irritation that may accompany the experience. However, I hope that in the end, you will feel that you have also acquired some new mental furnishings. At times it may seem to you that I am positively insulting—to you personally. However, I remind you that when you feel so, it is not my words that are responsible, but your emotional necessity for treating my words as being insulting. It is a mistake to assume that they must affect everybody that way. My words only let some of the gas out of the balloon which carried your heroes, or your delusions of grandeur. I have deflated your ego and you didn’t like it, but it will do you good. Cultivate the contrary attitude, of curiosity, of trying to understand what I mean, and how much truth you can find in it and use—and then you will have learned something. Those writers who flatter your vanity by justifying your prejudices or wishful and fearful thinking—are your real enemies. I wish to help you to outgrow your need for wishful and fearful thinking. None of us know it all, not even you or I. We can learn from each other. Write me and kick like an insane mule if you like. I can learn something even from that. I will welcome your letters. I can’t be insulted. Try it! A few persons like or dislike me personally, and so praise or blame my work in general—without reading it. Some achieve a sentimental interest in a little of my work and imagine that they 17 understand all of me. Some approve of the conclusions of certain essays but who would hate me if they knew my negation of their pet prejudices. Some see a little of my method, but without understanding its implications or its conflict with the intellectual methods of others working in the same general field, whom they like or dislike very much. A few discover, and are attracted by some apparent novelty in my method or conclusions as revealed in a particular essay, but without suspecting its consequences when the method is applied to very different data or their psychology. Others give approval or disapproval to some applications of my method without any awareness that only the understanding and improvement of my method seem important to me. Those few who care to understand me must read some of my most recent intellectual output. Their evaluations of my work would help if, after they read my output with empathic insight and understanding, they believe that they have more mature impulses and intellectual methods than those that I use. Their criticism of them could be very useful to me and scientific advancement, and that would make me very happy. The emotional approval of me as a person is nothing compared to your understanding of what I am trying to do if such understanding leads to an improvement of my method or my theories. To have some intelligent appreciation of how little knowable is yet known. It naturally leads to that humility which is the beginning of wisdom. To know something of past struggles for progress conduces one to an appreciation of how little is probably true of what we think we know. Thus to see our attainments in their true relation to past beliefs, and their probable relation to future knowledge gives us an inkling as to the true measure of our ignorance. To have such understanding is to love truth more than our vain predispositions; to love harmlessness of life more than moral sentimentalism; to be free from Phariseeism because we know the diversity and uncertainty of standards; to be unafraid of new evidence and unoppressive toward new claims of truth; and to be controlled by selfishness so mature that our greatest happiness comes from studying all problems by unemotional methods. It means making all judgments by objectively derived standards; having the desire to know the truth always overpowers the desire for approval; to seek always the corrective for our present beliefs; never imposing our opinions by invasive force; and never being impatient—except perhaps with intolerance. This is the essence of intellectual hospitality. In addition to this, if we show that rare disposition to make a substantial sacrifice for defending the right of those to be heard whose opinions we disapprove, we shall have a virtue so rare as to be almost heroic. Because I am a psychologist, I see all human problems as problems of human nature—as problems of our defective, sick, and immature human nature, which is in a process of slow change, and which change could objectively improve the social order. I wish to promote that end. When I say “all human problems,” I mean to include everything from your own most intimate personal problems to the all-inclusive international problems. To be more specific: all problems of morals, religion, family discord, sociology, crime, riots, revolutions, and wars, are problems of emotional indigestion, that is, problems of mental hygiene and intellectual infantilism. Yes, I am headed for the goal of an enlarged human liberty. I am traveling toward that goal by a psychological pathway. The way to get rid of the fears of tyrannous governments and dictators is to first get rid of the artificial fears and lures of delusional hopes within ourselves. When we lose our imaginary causes for fear, we will feel less need for the protection of dictators and tyrannous governments. I am doing the foundation work for such liberation and I seek your cooperation and help. This means that we must learn and teach others how to accelerate the natural process of psycho-sexual maturing in the young, and the psycho-social evolution of the race. You 18 must help to spread this new gospel of evolutionary psychology and its liberating power. And now I hope that we are friends working on a common cause. You should also know that I am one of the least known among the arch-heretics of our time. This is even though I have probably written about a greater variety of social heresies than any other American, and yet no group of reformers or radicals will claim me as being of their party. This is so because I charge all our social sins to corruption in our education. I insist that a better society can come only by making all humans saner and psychologically more mature. Therefore, I believe that the evils of our civilization cannot be remedied by any sentimental idealism, by any legalistic reforms, or by any revolution that is not based upon a psychological understanding of inter-human relations and behavior as seen in a psycho-evolutionary setting. All our past reforms I regard as being merely a change of symptoms for our psycho-social afflictions and infantilisms. The outgrowing of these infantilisms is something very different from a mere change in their symptoms. An education that is intelligently designed to help humanity outgrow its infantilism differs fundamentally from merely supplying learned justifications for keeping it the same. On March 10, 1940, when asked to make a presentation to my University of Wisconsin Class of 1885 and was told to confess all, I took the admonition to mean boasting without shame and confessing without apology my deeds and misdeeds, an attribute in my character that I have sometimes been prone to commit in excess. Nevertheless, I gave the following unabashed remarks: Dear Classmates of 1885, Well, I have no corns, nor any other aches or pains, and my dome still has a few hairs. I chew my food with the teeth that nature gave me; feel as if I have fifty years more to go, and I need that time in which to finish my job. I have no living children. My good wife still carries the bluff of youth. As a young fellow, I am going strong. All this is a matter of good inheritance and not of wisdom. Now for the record of my first seventy-five years. According to your varying tastes, you will regard the following record as a credible or disgraceful performance. A few of you may have a curiosity to even ask what the fuss is about. Your psychological complexes will determine which of the two you choose. At any rate, what there is of intellectual initiative in me resulted in a new philosophy of life that is based upon evolutionary psychology. It is not strange that I performed this or that novel task, but it may be surprising that no one had done it before me. Anyhow, I gave up a fair chance for large professional earnings for forty years of following my muse without pay and having an income about equal to the wages of a plumber. This “sacrifice” was made to develop my dream—to express my follies or something worse perhaps. Now for the record of my credentials up to that point. 1. I believe that I am the only person to criticize Mormonism with the confessed bias of an agnostic. 2. I was the first to prepare and publish bibliographies on birth control; the erotogenic interpretation of religion; and a Free Speech Bibliography (the latter listing about 4,000 items). 3. I prepared and published the first Free Press Anthology (quoting over 200 authors). 19 4. I was the first to write an elaborate treatise (430 pages) to prove that all of our laws against ‘blasphemy’ are unconstitutional. 5. I was the first to make an extensive defense of the proposition that all of our laws against “obscene” literature violate several provisions of our Bills of Rights. The courts have disagreed with my conclusion without answering my arguments. 6. I was the first to try to prove that “obscenity,” like witchcraft, is never a quality that inheres in, or a force for evil that emanates from, “obscene” books, etc., but it is exclusively a quality of the contemplating or accusing mind. All court convictions for “‘obscenity” are based upon a delusion. This psychological problem has never yet been presented to any court because defense lawyers fear the superstition of judges. Or, are they too superstitious, too dull, or too lazy? 7. I was the first person to apply psychoanalytic theories to a judicial opinion, to show an “unconscious” sexual motive for its conclusions, and the details of the justification. 8. I was the first person to insist that the religious temperament and not a crude fundamentalist theology is the real enemy of social progress. A new conception of agnosticism was another result. 9. I was the first to denounce our emotional devotion to the Golden Rule as the symptom of a “split personality,” and that, consequently, the Golden Rule can never work for long, nor within large groups. The present mob devotion to it makes the Golden Rule the most pernicious of all the moral superstitions of our time. 10. I was the first to assert that all of our social issues are problems of human nature and that their solution must come through new concepts of mental hygiene and education, both based upon evolutionary psychology. This means psycho-sexual maturing in the individual and the acceleration of the natural process of psycho-social evolution for the race. 11. I am the first to insist that the problems of human liberty are all psychological and all a matter of individuals outgrowing their childhood’s inferiority-superiority complexes and their derivatives. 12. I was the first to deny, upon psychological grounds, that “money talks;” on the contrary, I substituted the psychological determinant for our choice of economic practices and theories for “the economic determination of history.” 13. I was the first to apply purely mechanistic psychology for the elimination of all moral judgments and values, the latter being regarded as mere psychoneurotic symptoms. Instead of moral judgments, I substituted psychiatric and psycho-evolutionary classifications and explanations. 14. I was the first to describe various intellectual methods for constitutional construction and the first to make and publish elaborate research for the historical interpretation of our guarantees for freedom of speech and of the press. As a consequence of this, I was the first to proclaim that free speech means the right to express with impunity the most obnoxious opinion, expressed most offensively, by the most despised person, so long as no actual and material injury is proven to have resulted therefrom. No court has yet considered these historic issues, nor my conclusion. 15. While some had logically connected sex and religion, I was the first to make detailed psychological studies to show the exact identity of erotic ecstasies and various mystical experiences, however differently rationalized. Also, I was the first to classify these 20 experiences by their larger mental content, fitted into a concept of psychological evolution. 16. I was the first to formulate the subjective factors of psychological evolution in the individual and race and to urge the use of such a concept as the indispensable foundation for a new theory, technique, and goal in education. 17. I was not the first, but among the first to insist that war presents chiefly a problem of human nature (the love-hate and sadomasochist complexes) and that therefore permanent peace cannot be achieved either by pedagogical indoctrination or moral sentimentalism. Instead, permanent peace can be approached only through a new conception of mental hygiene, and a new conception of education. This will involve a conscious reconditioning of the impulses and of the intellectual methods by which the impulses make themselves effective in action and thought. The aim is to “mature” both. It is only by such means that we will minimize the intensities behind our conflicting interests, and increase the number of well-unified personalities, the only road to permanent peace. In retrospect, I see that even as a student I had a way of steering my canoe into unknown waters. The study of psychology has shown me why I couldn't follow the well-beaten path that leads to a standardized intellect. My frequent failure to pass my examinations at the University was a typical example of such a consequence. Nevertheless, my research has been published in over one hundred and sixty different periodicals. Although I am practically without followers or imitators, I remain free from the bitterness of disappointment. This is my shameful confession, or my proud boast, whichever you choose to regard it. If my purse is replenished or the walking is good, I will resume my conversation with you in 1960. Faithfully Yours for a Saner Civilization. As the above statement to my classmates suggests, I have tried to live my life so that a few thoughtful persons in the future will count me among those who have done their best and succeeded a little in enlarging personal liberty and social well-being by accelerating psycho-social evolution. I am not among the philanthropists of our time, but I have tried to promote the democratization of our welfare. I have performed no deeds of heroic valor, but I have been unable to ignore the victims of our ancient theological, moral, and social superstitions. I have never been an altruist, but I hope that my selfishness has functioned on a level considerably more mature than that of the average educated human. I have never had a sublime thought or spiritual valuation of anything, but I have tried to understand the so-called “Natural Law” even in the psycho-social realm. I have lived believing that our so-called spiritual values are illusional and their sublime thoughts are only feel-good bunk. All of my ideas and valuations have been of the earth. I only hope that a few of them have been more accurately formed than those by some of the self-proclaimed leaders of our race. I am not interested in debates over the relative importance of Tweedle Dee or Tweedle Dum. I am undisturbed by different social theories, but I wish to know whether their practice will help or hinder democratization. I care nothing for this or that doctrine of conservatism, liberalism, 21 or radicalism. I did not choose between their pedagogical indoctrinations except to oppose the imposition of any artificial fears, deluding hopes, and all of their wishful or fearful thinking. There are usually three very distinct approaches to every human problem. There is always your approach; your opponent’s approach; and the scientific approach of an evolutionary psychologist. Your approach and that of your opponent are almost certain to be controlled by the conflicting emotions of a “split personality.” Anyone who specializes in evolutionary psychology should be nearly free from emotionalism, even toward the emotions of others. The first two may use much cultural and experiential equipment to rationalize and justify their emotional predispositions, whereas others will use all available facts to correct their primitive ones. The first two use “good logic” to justify their ends. The third substitutes psychological explanations and classifications. The former will justify some old superstitions, or substitute new superstitions for the old. The scientist, with a more unified personality, may prefer the amoral realistic attitude, and so reduce the fictive component in all our thinking. The two former often lose their way by devotion to words that are meaningless in the objective realm and symbolize only conflicting feelings within the antagonists. The scientific psychologist is more concerned with acquiring ever more objectively and inductively derived opinions, thus outgrowing their prejudices. I am indifferent to this or that bunch of metaphysical words. Instead, I wish to discover the psychological how and why of their illusional importance to others. I care nothing for this or that doctrine of conservatism, liberalism, and radicalism, to theories of regional or national dictatorships, or even to the super-national dictatorship of the Prophet, Seer Revelator of the Mormons, the Caliph of the Mohammedans, or the Pope of Rome. I have no choice between this or that pedagogical indoctrination, but oppose the impositions of any artificial fears, deluding hopes, and all of their wishful or fearful thinking. I will work with any group, whose practices do most to mature the impulses and intellectual methods of the crowd. I am zealous for better mental hygiene through an educational discipline that accelerates the natural processes of psychological evolution for all. Given these admissions as to who I am, I have ruminated for some time over how I might write my story and what approaches or contextual techniques would best serve what I contemplate to be the task ahead. The first technique I considered involved a conventional recording of events that are explained objectively as factual incidents in one’s life. These could be told with as much picturesque detail and dramatic effect as possible as if each story was an end in itself and not used as a means toward teaching a socially useful lesson. That is to say, there would be no deliberate order or coordination of events except to recount them as they happened and as if the reader is too wise to need anything pointed out, or, because the reader is too ignorant to use such information even if given to him. It represents more or less the reconnecting of the fragments of a life now gone. Its conscious motive is to furnish a maximum of entertainment with a minimum of education necessary to promote any psychological maturing in the reader. Other biographies of the living, or the recently deceased, show an interest in the creation of a mythical hero. With literary clothes selected for their emotional effect upon the reader, and not for allaying the emotive or enlarging the understanding, these biographies into the secret lives of kings and others are intended either to smear or glorify. In other words, the object is to create a distorted or illusional picture. In these situations, the facts that are narrated are commonly distorted (or neglected) and the style itself is focused on choosing the right technique to entertain the most readers and reap the largest profits. To do this, it is not uncommon for the writer to “cash in” by 22 justifying or intensifying any existing prejudices that would further entertain the unenlightened. Such biographies are intended for the common man and not for the enlightenment of the few who have intelligence enough and the desire to have their understanding enlarged. Another technique stresses the detail of one’s childhood environment within the family and community where the individual lived. In this model, there is an effort to describe the psychological effect of that environment on the individual the values and responses the environment instilled in the person’s childhood, and the extent to which those same values became controlling factors in determining the individual’s attitude, temperament, and intellectual maturity during later years. Here the emphasis is to present a maximum of accuracy in detailing the environmental influences and the subjective consequences of the interaction between the biographer and the environment. This indicates a stream of subjective tendencies that could be viewed as being relatively static and repetitive, at least in form, as if there were no orderly progression by any known and uniform evolutionary law. The biography would nevertheless furnish many simplified lessons in character development. Since I took a very active part in the controversies that involved the Mormons of Utah, a good-sized volume could easily be made around those experiences alone and the highly controversial essays I wrote during and afterward. Much of this would have permanent value. Another approach could be made around a specific incident such as the heresy trial of the Right Reverend William Montgomery Brown, a member of the House of Bishops of the Episcopal Church, who argued that Jesus was more of “an idea” than a historical person. Sometimes called “Bad Bishop Brown,” he was the first Episcopal bishop to be tried for heresy since the Reformation. My involvement in the story would entertain, be of educational value, and be woven around relevant aspects of American life and culture. However, it would only cover a small portion of my life. Another technique in biography is to include a very critical and detailed description of the individual’s psychological evolution as a reaction to changes in one’s life and the longer view of a changing environment. At the very least, this form of biography would portray the experiential causes and their consequences in building the psychological personality and its imperatives. At its best, all the implied psychological processes would be described in such a biography and the results evaluated in terms of mental hygiene and maturity. Such a biography is without precedent and would imply the same general novelty of an intellectual approach that has characterized the mental activity of my physical maturity. In my particular situation, between the years of fifteen and twenty-five (1881-1889), I visited every state in the Union except Oregon and Texas and did everything from being a boxcar tramp to supervising the building of railroad lines across several states. In the process, I met every type of human being from nearly every part of the world. Finally, using something like a narrative, I could weave a new outlook and philosophy of life, wholly unlike anything previously formulated. This would revolve around concepts of psycho-sexual maturing and psycho-social evolution, with the conscious desire to accelerate these natural processes. My juvenile rebellion, plus the output of a relatively well-unified personality after psychoanalysis, produced in me a very unusual initiative and some equally unusual results. In such a psychological biography, I could relate the ordinary and extraordinary experiences of my life and would accompany each of these events with some detailed psychological explanation as to the how and why of their influence upon me, and how I outgrew the effects of such experiences. 23 Using this method, I could contrast my former way of feeling, thinking, and acting, with the psychology of a more mature way of life. I believe that something of more permanent and cultural value could be produced if I were to rewrite our popular essayists in light of this new psychology. Here I am thinking of Emerson, Thoreau, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and others. Thus, I could develop and express a new philosophy of life in contrast with the best statements of the most popular writers of the past. By the use of this new point of view, I could furnish readers with a wholly new understanding and appraisal of politicians and educators, criminals and moralists, actors and newspaper columnists, moralists and leaders, and misleaders of public opinion. Exciting new events could also be given psychological interpretation. Nothing of this sort had ever been done for the general public. As I looked to the essentials of writing about my life and ruminating over the options before me, I decided to make it more than a mere record of my birth, travels, and activities as a human being. Such a record would prevent me from delving into the symptoms of the underlying psychological imperatives, the very essence of that which should be described, explained, understood, and evaluated. A biography should not attempt to be a history of the time, nor the subject’s contemporaries. I believe that behind the writing of any good biography, there is always some “unconscious” factor conditioned by the writer’s love-hate complex and its derivatives that determine the selection of the subject, the experiences discussed, and the choice and treatment of the data that are reported. In the model I have chosen, nothing will be told or omitted merely to detract or glorify my personality; nor will anything shameful be omitted or related through defiance or bravado. The effort will be to relate everything that can be taught in a psychological lesson. This means a biography that furnishes a maximum psycho-genetic explanation and psycho-evolutionary evaluation. Only then will there be a scientific approach to the psychological processes which determine behavior and character. Behavior will not be treated from the standpoint of any conventional outlook, nor any moral point of view; not even new morals for old. Instead, it will be scientific and thoroughly amoral. This is my way of saying that the best kind of biography must exhibit a minimum of emotionalism in the attitude, appraisal, and recording of those persons whose stories are being told. If my preferences are to prevail, I will write my memoir as five distinct episodes, each complete within itself and with a maximum of psychological self-explanations of the past in which I was a participant. With this would be interspersed some of my highly controversial essays, now wildly scattered in magazines. These would be such as are not duplicated in either outlook, thought, or method in any other works. Five chapters would therefore be written, each covering a different period of my development. a. Wanderlust Years: 1864-1889 b. Stormy Utah Years: 1889-1901 c. New York City Years: 1901-1915 d. Psychoanalyzed: 1914-1915 e. My Life as a Libertarian: 1915-1953 24 Although we commonly believe that most persons can be objective about others, people seem to doubt that one can be truthful about oneself. For that reason, this evaluation of myself will probably not be acceptable to many people. But how can one evaluate another without having some understanding of oneself? It seems like a kind of circle that is never mathematically satisfying but seems essential nonetheless. As for myself, I believe that I can be more objective about the “I” than most others can be about themselves. My maturing has accelerated over time and while I have mellowed considerably, as testified by my life, I remain satisfied that I still can do justice to the challenges that come to my attention. My self-evaluation is that of an original pioneer. I dare any of you to follow in my path. 25 Chapter 1 Wanderlust Years: 1864-1889 My story begins by being born and raised in a community in the Midwest among men who either individually or with their families made their escape from Germany after the failure of the 1848 Revolution. The intellectual leader and hero of the revolution, Carl Schurz,10 who later became an American statesman, journalist, reformer, and prominent member of the Republican Party. Like him, many had rewards offered by the German government for their capture and return to face the death penalty for their misdeeds. Having thus risked their lives in revolt against their government by immigrating to the United States, most had little respect for authority or even moral conventions. The “Wild West” for these pioneers, with their ox-carts instead of railroads, offered a crude and hard life with little time for anything except stark realism. Every particle of interest they might have spent in pursuit of some fantasy idealism would have lessened the chances of their success in combating nature. Because of this inheritance, my childhood environment contained no appreciable inclination toward moral sentimentalism. It was healthy-minded, whatever its other shortcomings. Formative Years My parents were born too late to have been part of the defunct German revolution, but something brought them to live in this new stronghold in the Midwest. That being said, psychologically they nevertheless came under the same influences and behavior. My father, Theodor Jacob Christoph Ernst Schroeder, was born around 1830 in Schwerin, a city near the coast of the Baltic Sea in northern Germany. He came to the United States when about twenty years of age and was the first member of his family to do so. Although my father never spoke of it, I knew that he did not like his father, and as a consequence, helped two of his brothers and the only daughter of his sister come to America and get a foothold here. His brother Albert lived and died in Appleton, Wisconsin. Another, Ernst, became a farmer near Webster City, Iowa. In Germany, my father learned the miller’s trade at a time when windmills furnished much of the power. He told me stories of his considerable ability as a wrestler and boasted of carrying as many as four sacks of grain on his shoulders to the top of the windmill and then using gravity to feed grain into the millstone below to produce flour. As an apprentice miller, he went from town to town, and job to job, carrying out his duties at each windmill. To document his work, he carried a book in which each of his employers wrote a testimonial of facts regarding the quality of his work. In effect, the book held a record of his efficiency and became his credentials for the next job. I saw much merit in that system. It was certainly better than my wanderlust indulgences because the elders had more consciously and purposefully planned it. My wanderings were largely 10 Carl Schurz (1829-1906) settled in Wisconsin in 1856, became active in the antislavery movement, participated in the Republican National Convention in 1860, was made a brigadier general of volunteers in the Union Army in 1862, and commanded troops in the Second Battle of Bull run, Chancellorsville, Gettysburg, and Chattanooga. After the war he became part owner of the St. Louis Gestliche Post, served as U.S. Senator from 1869 to 1875, and helped organize the Liberal Republican Party in opposition to the political corruption of the Grant administration. 26 a matter of blind drifting, partly determined by the unconscious influences of an unsatisfied sex urge. Very few youngsters would have gone through my experiences without consciously seeking and getting as much out of it as I did. My father was too young to have had an active interest in the abortive Revolution of 1848, which was credited to the Russian anarchist Peter Kropotkin,11 who advocated for a decentralized society free from any central government. I do remember, however, that my father said that he left Germany to avoid compulsory military service. It is also significant, that of his sympathies, he followed the defeated German rebels to Wisconsin where they had gone under the leadership of Schurz who, after taking part in the failed revolution, fled to Switzerland, then briefly to Prussia before emigrating to America in 1852. However, I never heard my father, nor any of these so-called rebels, express anything that could now be called radical or revolutionary doctrine. As I look back, I remember seeing considerable negativism in the German population against conventional social traditions. My father seemed wholly contented with as much opportunity and freedom as Wisconsin and the United States government offered, and he did his best to adjust to such restrictions as surrounded him. These defeated rebels dominated the only social atmosphere that I knew in the town of Watertown on the Rock River halfway between Madison and Milwaukee. Those few Puritan Yankees who lived there were regarded as foreigners and “peculiar people.” Compared with most other American communities, Watertown provided a social environment wholly outside conventional patterns. I now know how that environment created my psychological imperatives, all by processes that were then unconscious, but which later made it necessary for me to try to “be my own man.” Even the university failed to standardize my intellect. From these German rebels of my youth, I absorbed much. They were the psychological parents of my Wisconsin progressivism. My mother, whose first name was Barbara, was born near Cologne, on the Rhine, about 1845, and was brought to America by her parents when four years of age. They settled near Two Rivers, Wisconsin. Her father was something of a musician who played in a band when barn dances were the most important festive occasions in a community. Otherwise, he must have counted on making a living by clearing forests, or farming, since there was nothing else to do. At an early age, my mother moved to Horicon in Dodge County where she worked as a housemaid. At the time, Lake Horicon was quite a large body of water, created by a dam built in 1846 to produce waterpower. At the village, there was a flour mill and a sawmill powered by the dam, and my father worked in the former. When the Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled in favor of the landowners 11 Peter Kropotkin (1842-1921) was a Russian anarchist and geographer who, after renouncing his aristocratic heritage, dedicated his life to the cause of social justice. Member of the Chiaykovsky Circle, a revolutionary group of workers and peasants in and around St. Petersburg and Moscow. He authored Words of a Rebel (1885), In Russian and French Prisons (1887), Fields, Factories and workshops (1899), Memoirs of a Revolutionist (1899), Mutual Aid (1902), and The Great French Revolution 1789-1793 (1909). Figure 1: Theodore Schroeder's Mother 27 whose farmland was constantly flooded due to misuse of the dam, the legislature ordered its destruction, which caused the settlement at Horicon to become much less important to the state’s economy. After losing his job in the mill, my father bought a farm in Dodge County and married my mother. Her parents were ardent Roman Catholics, and when she married my father in the early 1860s in a civil ceremony, she was disowned by her parents. Although the distance that separated them was only a few hundred miles, she never saw her parents again nor did they ever exchange a single letter. It is possible that this was due to her parents’ illiteracy, but I believe otherwise because I often heard my mother complain of their intolerant neglect. As a consequence, I never saw any of my mother’s immediate family. A female cousin once came to our house for a brief stay while running away from a painful marriage. Doubtless, my mother’s reputation as a “heretic” made this cousin feel comfortable at our house in her situation. The complaint of my mother against parental intolerance had a very profound and lasting influence on the whole of my life. On September 17, 1864, I was born in a log house situated in the county’s primeval forest. My two other siblings did not survive childbirth. I remember nothing about the house or our neighbors. What I do remember is that of a boy of approximately my age who played hide-and-seek with me around the old rail fences and in a large barn. The thrifty farmers of that period, and long after, were identified by the fact that their barns were much larger and nicer than the houses they built for their own families. Firewood was plenty to keep the houses warm even if the chinking got out from between the logs. In the fall of 1866, my father sold his farm in depreciated currency and became “rich” with the resumption of specie payments. Using the proceeds from the sale of the farm, my father invested in a large plot of land and a four-room cottage on the outskirts of Watertown. Across the open field from our home was a relatively large and pretentious two-story farmhouse that was the “show palace” of Carl Schurz. Although Watertown was then suffering from a collapsed economy, my father got the job of foreman in Doering’s flour mill. This was one of several factories that received their power from the dammed waters of the Rock River. Father’s pay was three dollars per day, a grand wage for the time as unskilled laborers received from 75 cents to one dollar for a ten to twelve-hour day. At the time, food was cheap. Home-cured bacon cost eight to ten cents per pound, and eggs were from ten to fifteen cents per dozen, according to the season. Like many families, we lived largely on the produce from the garden which my father worked in the early morning. Part of the time we kept a cow. About 1875, my father bought a horse and a phaeton which was a great luxury at the time. Even so, he became a chambermaid to the horse as I was not yet old enough to take over that responsibility. Watertown’s social life was dominated by Germans. As noted earlier, many of the townsmen were members of, or the descendants of, the defeated rebels of the 1848 Revolution and brought their German customs with them. Those few Yankee businessmen in our town lived apart. I remember one neighboring family, whom we called “queer people,” owned an organ on which their children learned to play. However, the organ was carefully locked up so that no noise could be emitted between Saturday evening and Monday morning. Figure 2: Theodore Schroeder at ten 28 Contrast this with the habit of the Germans who spent their Sundays at the town hall or in the summer picnicking on one of several islands in the Rock River. The town hall would be populated by whole families during the afternoon and into the early evening. There would be amateur theatricals, concerts, and athletic exhibitions accompanied by ample amounts of beer and food. The people sat around tables in families or small social groups. As a child, I drank my little glass of beer with the elders. All was orderly and I believe admission was limited to families and their guests. However, at places like the island resort, everybody was welcome who cared to pay the small admission fee. This often brought a contingent of Irishmen, and when they happened to imbibe too much, there would usually be fights to establish social supremacy among the male pugilists. My Moral Upbringing When parents were being distributed through the medium of nature’s lottery, I drew the prize for having the most “ignorant” parents. They were so ignorant they knew absolutely nothing about the various theories for bringing up children. Furthermore, their problems were so real and so numerous that they had no time for neurotic indulgences or daydreams. My father seemed to have had a minimum of conflict over his sexual impulses and therefore lacked that intensity of feeling which makes the difference between practical expediency and supernatural moral duties. Because of that ignorance, there was very little interference with my natural growth toward a realistic outlook on life and its problems. I never appreciated the actual importance of having such wholesome and ignorant parents until I became acquainted years later with evolutionary psychology. In my effort to explain why I considered myself fortunate in the absence of moral training in childhood, I will begin by contrasting morals and moral training with an amoral scientific expediency. That is necessary to make my meaning clear. As a psychologist who specializes in emotions, I find that all moral values and judgments are emotionally toned and unconsciously conditioned. By contrast, scientific judgments of expediency are controlled by the facts of human observation, and by a resultant adaptation to nature’s laws, including those of our evolving and maturing human nature. In the case of morals, thus understood, whatever intelligence there is, is used to justify moralistic preconceptions and popular pretenses. In the case of scientific psychologists, all observations and erudition are used as a check and corrective for every predisposition, even the moralistic ones. If my parents had not been wholly ignorant of the difference between expediency and morals, I am sure they would have been moralists. It is a historical fact, explained by modern theories of emotional psychology, that moral precepts based upon a claim of supernatural authority tend to be absolute in character and are explained by moralists in terms of super-rational, superhuman, or supernatural sanctions. Therefore, they are held to be of uniform authority at all times and places regardless of conditions. Because of these mental qualities, the devotees to morals are always in danger of fanaticism, which may seek to enforce its codes as if they were infallible, unchangeable, and irreplaceable. Unfortunately, moralists are responsible for most of the nervous disorders that some of them pretend to cure. This comes from the fact that it is like moralists to give exaggerated emotional value to all irregularities of conduct or disregard their moral gods. Such conduct and the religionist’s moral code might both be subjected to a scientific judgment as to whether or not it is a wholesome and intelligent adjustment to the “Natural Law.” 29 My Religious Upbringing In Germany, my father had been raised as a Lutheran but seemed not to have been deeply impressed by it. The sense of sin did not overpower his realistic outlook on life. Accordingly, he never attended church without protest. Although he supplied my mother with the money she wished to contribute toward the support of her pastor, he often ridiculed her religious beliefs. From his point of view, he worked hard for his few dollars and the preacher seemed to live almost in idle ease and therefore did not merit my mother’s contributions. Intellectually my father had outgrown his Christian theology and simply had no emotional need for the deluding consolations of religion. Because of my mother’s Roman Catholic upbringing, she carried something of unconscious guilt for having married my father. Probably there were other factors in her sense of inferiority as well. However, there seems to have been very little concentration of it on the subject of sex. Instead, it seemed to show itself in the generalities of religion. My mother never outgrew the pernicious emotionalism of her early religious training. To her death, she harbored something of the delusional feeling of sin, of being a traitor to the superstitions of her parents. Because she ignored the teachings of the Catholic Church as to marriage, she probably had some added feelings of guilt and therefore a continuing need for the consolation that church membership afforded. Thus she became a member of the Evangelisch-Reformierte Kirche (Evangelical Reformed Church) in Watertown. My mother was uniformly kind and I now think rather sentimental. Sometimes she interfered when she thought that my father punished me unnecessarily or excessively, or that other methods would serve me better. I can remember only once when I thoroughly angered her. I was about five or six years of age. She lost her self-control so far that she got both her hands into my hair and with a tight grip she shook me vigorously. Father used to punish me by using a piece of heavy rubber tubing instead of the traditional strap. Of course, I resented it at the time. I now look back upon those punishments with more knowledge of how other children were dealt with. I think that I fared much better than the average youngster who was brought up by parents of the same economic and cultural class. I remember a fair number of arguments between my parents but only one that assumed major importance. I was about five years of age and don’t remember what it was about. Mother walked out of the house much hurt in her feelings. She started to walk across our open field in the direction of Carl Schurz’s farm. It looked to me as if she were leaving my father and so I ran after her wishing to comfort her and go with her if she intended to leave. She walked a quarter of a mile or so, sat down and cried, and then returned home. I held her hand but she made no explanation. Here I expressed my subconscious preference for my mother because of her more gentle treatment. I was sent to Sunday school in my mother’s church. Father being unable to see the psychological harm that might have come, readily agreed. However, he often ridiculed the things that were taught me. Although my mother was intellectually incapable of answering my father’s sallies, I nevertheless clung to the church because I clung more to my mother than to my father. However, my father’s attitude created in me an open mind which explains why, when I later attended the university, Robert Ingersoll’s writings had a great effect on me. At first, this meant becoming an agnostic after the pattern of Ingersoll. However, soon after I became acquainted with psychology, I changed my opinion of him and his writings. 30 As I now look back upon that experience, it seems to me that Sunday school is simply a psychological trick by which children become emotionally enslaved by their childish feelings for associations with the symbols of an unknowable supernatural. This emotional enslavement works well for the support of the churches and their clergy. These childish emotional attitudes persist so that people continue to support churches whose theology they no longer believe. The evil effect of moral theology lies in the artificial creation of delusional fears and hopes as a means of inducing unquestioning obedience to conventionalized unwholesome standards of view of either our personal or our social problems. Tragically, they prevent us from searching for more mature intellectual methods as a means to a better solution. The acceptance, as if based on the objective reality of the delusional fears and hopes of religious moralists, is the very essence of that inner conflict which is the inferiority-superiority complex of every so-called “split personality.” I use this term to mean a divided interest that the individual cannot harmonize. Of course, moralists and other religious racketeers remain blind to that fact. Consequently, we ignore the real psychological explanation for our personal and social preparation. Similarly, we accept misleading and delusional explanations for the criminal temperament and are never allowed to see that religion and moral training are the cause of most crimes; they are the catalysts for the functional disorders of the nervous system. Sunday school was intended to reinforce the parental teachings of honesty. But this brought one peculiar result which I will now relate. In Sunday school we memorized the German Catechism. The substance of its two most important questions and answers stuck with me. The first was: “Do we believe in a God?” The readymade answer was: “Yes, we do.” The next question was: “Why do we believe in God?” Again, the ready-made answer was: “Because we see him in nature.” Here is where my youthful literalism and realism played havoc with my theology. I felt that I could look as far under the bark of a tree as any other kid. However, I could not see God there, or anywhere else. As a child of eleven or twelve years of age, the words, “We see God in nature” meant nothing to me unless I could interpret the words literally, and that is just what I could not do. I felt that I could look as far into a stone, or under the bark of a tree as any other brat, but I just could not discover God there. I had a suspicion that my father was just as ignorant as I was. However, the emotional atmosphere of the Sunday school was filled with such sternness that I did not dare to make my doubts known, even to my father. My ignorance and skepticism about God became my secret guilt. So, I went on, until the time of my confirmation and qualification for church membership. Then I was expected to answer these questions according to the book and partake of the “holy sacrament.” Years later I read George Argyle’s Reign of Law (1868) wherein he made a special plea to justify the conclusion that God could be found in nature. As a child, I wanted to see God in nature just because it seemed to be expected of me and I feared that disapproval would follow the discovery of my incapacity. Such is the weakness and suggestibility of all children. This predisposition of mine acquired some special emotional value because I wanted my mother’s approval and I was aware that she would be saddened if she knew about my doubts. On the other hand, I had acquired a desire to be honest, which seems to have been symptomatic of my well-developed realistic temperament. As a result, I made a compromise, not wholly honest, but a compromise. When the whole class was to stand before the altar and answer the questions of the catechism in concert, I resolved that I would move my lips as if answering but I would not speak the false words. Thus, I helped the pastor deceive himself. To me, it seemed better to act out a lie than to speak it. So near did the church come to making a liar of me. As a matter of experience, 31 most young children find this to be safe and therefore remain liars throughout life because they did not learn how to correct or outgrow their childhood’s conflicting feelings. And so they remained in the churches and supported the clergy. Just about the only moral preachment I ever heard in my home was, to be honest and fair with others. My father had a good reputation for honesty as was shown by his being elected to the office of justice of the peace even though he lacked sufficient knowledge of English and other necessary intellectual equipment. Nevertheless, he was chosen as the best qualified to rid the community of an incumbent who had been suspected of official dishonesty. Although elected, my father resigned shortly afterward to allow someone intellectually better qualified to be appointed. To me, that said everything regarding who my father was. I desired to be intellectually honest but the forbidding atmosphere of the church prevented it. This engendered in me a feeling like that which my mother had experienced with her intolerant Catholic parents. At that time, I could not formulate it in words. However, the psychological effect of that suppression of my desire, to be honest, became so intensified that I felt the same childish aversion for the Protestant churches that I already had for my Catholic grandparents and their faith. Here again, was the predisposition that enabled Robert G. Ingersoll’s writings to change the whole course of my future. As a student, I talked about his ideas wherever I went. But that came later. Ghost Stories and Fairy Tales As children, the deluded were told to believe in God and the Devil, along with the Holy Ghost and an assortment of malevolent ghosts. This was done to promote a blind unquestioning conformity to parental wishes rather than help youngsters think realistically toward a more intelligent behavior. The means were that of creating an artificial fear of Satan, his purgatory and hell, and a purely emotional hope for a delusional heaven. Such practices produce fearful conformity without realistic understanding and are the best means for developing a “split personality” toward the psychopathic borderland. In my childhood days, it was a bit unusual to be brought up without ghosts, and yet, in my own home, I never heard a ghost story. Such was my good fortune. If the disbelief in ghosts was a matter of education only, then my parents would have been believers, and I would have been fed on ghost stories and spooks. My parents did not believe in ghosts simply because they had no temperamental need for them. But they were hospitable to a lot of other silly beliefs such as the relationship of the moon to miraculous healings and the crops. However, these superstitions were a little more realistic than ghosts. The moon did exist and erroneous opinions about its influence were simply bad logic and not symptoms of morbid cravings or feelings. But ghosts, witches, and wizards are quite different. Until we know of their existence, at least as certainly as we know of the moon’s existence, there is no use in talking about their power. So, even though they were ignorant of their superiority in that respect, I was lucky to have chosen parents who were too healthy-minded to be interested in witches or ghosts. If children are made afraid of such non-existent things as ghosts, it injures them in several ways. The first is that, because of such delusional fear and the accompanying delusional interest in non-existent things, they have less interest and time to spend on the real conditions that surround them and to which they must adjust or suffer. This means that less time and interest are spent 32 understanding external conditions and the very practical problems that life presents. Thus, without knowing it, I developed a habit of objectivity early in my childhood which contrasted with the habit of dreamy, anxious brooding about many nothings that are important factors in all unbalanced minds and all crippled emotions. The same good effect came from the fact that my parents were too ignorant to know anything about fairy stories. Consequently, I never heard of or read one. Fairy stories are the daydreams produced and recorded by our ancestors during the infancy of the race. These fantasies are quite normal in the earlier stages of human development and furnish a pictorial portrayal of a delusional realization of childish wishful thinking. We now know that infants and children think through their sensations, feelings, and fantasies. This habit is the very thing that must be outgrown if we are ever to grow up. At its highest development in physically mature persons, it is regarded as symptomatic of a sick mind. Interest in fairy tales intensifies the inner conflict between fearful and wishful thinking and so lessens the capacity for solving everyday problems by observation and the use of common sense. In our day certain “educated” persons argued that since fairy tales were normal to children, therefore they were pleasurable and desirable intellectual food that should be given to them. I contend that it is important to outgrow them as soon as possible since continued pleasure in fairy stories may retard the process of outgrowing such infantile interests. Merely because pacifiers are pleasing to babies and sometimes are temporarily useful, it does not follow that we should artificially and needlessly perpetuate the child’s interest in pacifiers. The parental attitude that encourages the fairy stories supplies the child’s fantasy life with an abundance of interesting and pleasing details that result in maximizing the feelings that go with an infantile fantasy life. All this makes the outgrowing of interest in infantile life much more difficult and uncertain. Thus a long step is taken by the child toward the borderland of inefficiency, maladjustment, and even insanity. The reading of fairy stories might not be so bad if parents always accompanied them with a debunking process. The pleasurable aspect of the fantasies should be offset by contrasting them with more intellectual attitudes and by pointing out the dangers of their emotional content by relating it to mental and emotional sickness. If the infantile joys of fantasy are outgrown by contrasting them with their possible evil consequences as the price of their perpetuation, then some good may come incidental to the belief in fairy tales. In some sense, they may be regarded as an almost unavoidable evil that, like measles, is to be outgrown and forgotten. I was fortunate because I was kept so busy with things that I became more objective than most children, and partly because I had no experience with fairy tales. Pubescent Years I received very few instructions about sex, but my few questions were answered as honestly as could be by my father. On a few occasions, he volunteered advice when he thought I was headed toward unwise conduct. However, there was one important peculiarity about this advice. Never was there one particle of moral sentimentalism connected with it; never a hint that public opinion had any authority beyond its practical material dangers; never a single suggestion of divine wrath was uttered; no punishment after death; no soul-dangers; no spiritual penalties; or other artificial fears were ever imposed upon me by my parents. The whole of my father’s talks was merely to show me what conduct is most expedient based on his views of cause and effect in matters of sex. 33 My father’s intelligence was very limited, but his attitude was very realistic and wholesome. When I was about ten or twelve years of age, I met my cousin Erma Ross who became a playmate of mine. Over time, our relationship grew more intimate in nature but we soon went our separate ways. In my university days I became somewhat infected with the moral microbe, but owing to my unusual capacity for resistance, this was later outgrown. I don’t understand why I should have forgotten all those boys who gathered at the swimming hole in the Rock River, or school. I do recall a few with whom I had fought after school and two others who fought each other. However, these were not intimate associates. Among the male playmates of my childhood, I can remember only three. One of them I heard of later was a labor lawyer in Milwaukee. The second was convicted of murder for shooting a would-be burglar. The third was Ralph D. Blumenfeld12 who, after the First World War, was recognized as the dean of London’s newspaper editors. I once bought one of his books but concluded that one did not have to show much intellectual or psychological maturity to rank among the great editorial minds. Work Experience I doubt that I ever received any money from my father as a gift. If I needed money, I was always shown a way I could earn it by doing chores around the house. This and other similar instances made me a very realistic youngster always willing to adapt myself to anything required by circumstances. My first job was during the summer vacation at eleven years of age when the owner of a country general store hired me as a messenger boy. The following summer I worked in a sash, door, and blind factory making cheese boxes; and at thirteen, I again spent my summer vacation working in a general store. It was also then that I quit the church. At fourteen, I ran errands for a shoe store and helped in a law office whose lawyer was a rebel in every sense of the word since during the Civil War he left Wisconsin and joined the Confederate Army. When he returned after the war, his neighbors talked of lynching him and he dared them to try. On occasion, he and his sister would go out to the lot in front of their house and shoot clay pipes from each other’s mouths as a warning to neighbors of their marksmanship. Once when a crowd did assemble, he dared them to come inside the yard. None did. I suppose his would-be-lynchers thought twice before taking the risk. As I see it now, he was the victim of a painful inferiority complex as well as a good lawyer when a little drunk. He also exhibited more independence than most lawyers in his criticism of the courts. I learned several useful things from him, one of which was that whatever was worth having was worth asking for. By his example, I was encouraged to dare to be myself without any subordination to the whims of the crowd. He also put into my mind and my father’s mind the idea of my becoming a lawyer. By 1880, I was getting restless living in Watertown. With its population of about 8,000, I found it too small and wanted to get started at something and I guess I also wanted to get away from my father who was too strict to suit my taste. Some of my friends had gone to Chicago and had gotten jobs. So intent was I in leaving home that I overlooked the fact that they had relatives or friends who helped them get started. Ignorant of that information, I so badgered my dad about 12 Ralph David Blumenfeld (1864-1945) was an American born journalist who was managing editor for the London edition of The New York Herald, and became editor of the London Times in 1908. 34 Chicago that one day I overtaxed his patience. He gave me $50 to go to Chicago and told me that when I discovered what a damn fool I had been, I could come back. When I arrived in Chicago. I found a cheap boarding house and began searching for a job. I was too particular at first, acting as if Chicago was looking for a bright boy like me to make him president of a bank, or mayor of the city. When my money ran out, I took a job with a paper company that was just opening a district office in Chicago but received only enough pay to cover my room and board. At the end of the first week, I asked for an increase and was told it could not be given to me until they began making money. Remembering that what was worth having was worth asking for, I requested a day off to find a better job. This was granted me and I found a job that same day as a clerk in a hat store run by one Jacobs, the “Great New York Hatter.” I soon discovered, however, that he was selling hats on false pretenses. A few weeks later, his creditors closed the store, causing me to lose a week’s pay which I desperately needed to cover my expenses. When the officers took charge of the store, I walked down North Clark Street visiting nearly every business and asking for employment. Finding none, I then went south on Wabash Street and then turned west continuing as before. By nightfall, I landed a job selling hosiery and underwear to women at Carson Pirie Scott and Co. This was a large wholesale house that had a department store on the west side. Once again, however, the pay was not enough to cover my living expenses so I asked for a raise. This time, I was given a room above the store so that I could serve as an additional watchman, thus saving rent money. I remained there until the next fall. The store was located in a tough neighborhood but I soon became friends with a private detective whose job it was to patrol the neighborhood and I sometimes went out with him in the evenings. That was my education in the nightlife of Chicago’s Tenderloin district. In the latter part of August 1881, I was entitled to a vacation and went home for a visit. I had stayed away for almost a year without asking for help from my father other than the $50 he had given me to start my career. In the meantime, the lawyer for whom I had formerly worked persuaded my father to let me try my hand at the University of Wisconsin. He recommended that I should take a year or two in general studies and then apply to law school. During my time in Chicago, I discovered a Museum of Anatomy conducted by one of those persons whom we contemptuously call "quacks," because they advertise their willingness to treat diseases that many compassionless moral snobs in the medical profession refuse to treat, which refusal results in so much suffering to the innocent. In this Museum, for a trifling admission fee, I saw perfect imitations in wax of all the indescribable horrors consequent upon venereal infection. Of course, the exhibition was obscene and indecent beyond description, but it was something more as well. It was an object lesson giving an ocular demonstration of the terrible consequence of promiscuity and could not do otherwise than to inspire a wholesome fear of which I have not rid myself to this day. The vividness of the impression produced by one such sight would far surpass all the moral and religious sermons that could be preached from now till doomsday because the innuendos or even the direct statements can mean nothing to the child's mind before it is possessed of the experience which enables it to translate the words into corresponding mental pictures. Nowadays such museums are suppressed because of their obscenity. It is deserving of consideration whether such forces for good had not better be encouraged by their attachment to our public schools in preference to their suppression. 35 University of Wisconsin I tried to enter the University of Wisconsin in the fall of 1881 but failed my entrance exams. Over the next several months I made up my deficiencies and was allowed to enter as a regular student in the spring semester. Although my father financed my expenses during my first year, I found that university living was cheap. After paying a few dollars for an unfurnished room in one of the old dormitories, a small group of us banded together in a club and hired a woman who, for a small sum, cooked and served us meals. We would then portion the cost among ourselves. In this way, our food costs us each about $2.50 per week. There were more expensive fraternities but I chose nothing of the sort. Club costs suited me just fine. Only later, in 1884, did I become a charter member of the Alpha Lambda Chapter of the Sigma Chi Fraternity on the Madison campus. During the American Civil War, those who were liable for military duty in the North were allowed to pay the sum of $300 for a substitute. My father’s aversion to war induced him to put up that sum as a substitute for himself. My encounter with military service occurred at the University of Wisconsin. Because it was the state’s land grant university, it required all male students to enroll in military drills. Although I was a pretty husky lad, by what methods I don’t remember, I secured a medical certificate disqualifying me from the program. That worked for a while until I was caught playing football and indulging in long-distance running. Thereafter I was required to participate in the drills. Admittedly I was a better athlete than a student but at least I escaped the standardization that affected so many of my fellow students. When about eighteen years of age I read a volume of Robert G. Ingersoll’s lectures. So opposed was I to the Catholicism in my grandparents that my emotions were “unconsciously” predetermined to accept Ingersoll’s logical agnosticism. I did this with the same utter lack of critical judgment as that which impels religionists to adopt dogmas about the unknowable absolute from their parents and priests. I also did a lot of reading on Christian polemics. At the time, I thought I was making an unprejudiced appraisal of all sides of the question. I now know that I thought myself to be unprejudiced only because I had temporarily crowded out of my consciousness all of the feelings and experiences of my childhood that I earlier recounted. I suspect that I reacted to my grandparents even as Ingersoll reacted to his clerical father. Robert G. Ingersoll was the son of a Congregational minister and abolitionist sympathizer and a constant source of trouble with his congregation. His career was ended by a church trial in Madison, Ohio, where he was charged with unministerial conduct. It was probably the unfair treatment his father received at the hands of his parishioners that caused young Robert to find an enemy in Calvinism and eventually Christianity itself. Admitted to the bar in 1854, he practiced until the Civil War when he assumed command of the 11th Regiment Illinois Volunteer Cavalry and was captured near Lexington, Tennessee. He was later released on his oath that he would not fight against the Confederates again. After the war, he took an active role in Republican politics but his persistent atheism/agnosticism prevented him from obtaining political office other than as Illinois Attorney General. Nationally known as a superb orator and lecturer, he was introduced by Rev. Henry Ward Beecher as “the Great Agnostic” before a large audience in Brooklyn, a designation that continued through his life. His principal lectures and speeches are found in Some Mistakes of Moses (1879) and Why I Am Agnostic (1896). 36 I defended Ingersoll because he had given me the courage and resolution to examine things for myself. Known widely as an advocate of the American Freethought Movement,13 he enjoyed a friendship with poet Walt Whitman, and antislavery campaigner Frederick Douglass, and defended Charles B. Reynolds who had been arrested on blasphemy charges in New Jersey. Ingersoll also made me aware of intolerance as a social problem. During an early visit to Utah, the Mormons had convinced me they were the victims of religious bigotry on the part of orthodox Christians. This was a half-truth but I was not yet objective enough to make an immediate search for the discovery of the other half. Among the several motives for my eventual settling down in Salt Lake City included the half-conscious desire to help the Mormons achieve greater freedom from Christian bigotry just as I wished for my mother. It was this feeling that had made me uncritical. It will be remembered that I read Ingersoll during my pubescent period when there was considerable artificial suppression of the normal, pre-heterosexual development and outlet for my erotic energy. Because of these suppressions, Ingersoll’s humanitarian sentimentalism easily produced in me the same association of ideas, including the usual excess of emotional value. During the continuance of my psychological ignorance, I acted largely in imitation of his moral sentimentalism and tended to glorify this rationalized and obsessive sex emotion under the misleading label of altruism. I accepted the agnosticism of both Thomas Henry Huxley and Ingersoll. Later I repudiated both and declared myself a psychological agnostic as distinguished from a logical agnostic. I became aware that the limitations of my thinking faculties were such that I could not know anything about any supernatural being. This precluded a denial as well as the affirmation of such a being. Also, from this point of view, evil was in the religious temperament and not in its theology no matter how primitive. It also followed from this that a strongly religious temperament, even though rationalized as agnosticism or atheism, was no less a menace to progress than if it was rationalized in terms of the super structuralism of fundamentalist Protestants or Roman Catholics. During the year I went off to college, my parents moved to the Dakota Territory where my father built a small cottage, one of the first on the site of Redfield which is now in Spink County, South Dakota. When the school year ended, I went to Redfield to visit them. At that time even 13 The American Freethought Movement, a group of free thinkers who were involved in a variety of social reform efforts, identified themselves as anarchists, atheists, and agnostics. They championed woman’s rights, woman’s suffrage, and birth control. Oddly enough, they were frequently associated with the paranormal, delving into Spiritualism and mediumship. Figure 3: Schroeder in the Western Prairies 37 pioneers were as scarce as hen’s teeth, and the semi-occasional barn dance was the only social gathering. The automobile, telephone, moving pictures, and radio had not yet arrived. Horseshoe pitching, horse races, and small game hunting were the most common sports. The only innovation I ever heard was when a farmer offered to bet money that his horse, without stopping once, could consume more time walking a mile than any horse in the Dakota Territory. It was in Redfield during the summer of 1882 when I first learned of a railway surveying party working somewhere out on the prairie mapping a route for a new line. Given that I had decided to major in civil engineering, I got on an old gray horse and rode in the direction indicated to me as the place of this surveying party. I found them, got hired, and remained with them until January of 1883, causing me to miss the fall semester. The following summer vacation, I again worked on a surveying party in North Dakota and received promotions due to my civil engineering coursework. When the work was finished, we were about forty miles north of Aberdeen. While the rest of the party went to Jamestown by company wagons to get paid off, I decided to walk to Aberdeen, and thence by rail to Redfield, and then on to Madison, Wisconsin, to attend classes. I started immediately after the work was done, and by evening, I had walked to the nearest house which was nearly ten miles distant. When I arrived, a barn dance was in progress and neighbors from many miles around were all there. I danced with the crowd until near daylight. Then I went to sleep and thereby missed a “lift” that would have taken me quite a few miles along my way. After an early breakfast, I started for Aberdeen with a stick and a bundle of clothes over my shoulders. Forty miles and twenty-one hours later, I reached Aberdeen. I felt fine. On my walk, I passed only two or three houses. At one I stopped to ask for some lunch. Since I had helped pay the fiddlers at the dance the night before and had only a few pennies left and not enough money to get to Redfield by train from Aberdeen, I told my hard luck story and the good farmer offered me a loan of five dollars. I took it and paid him back when I got to Redfield and received my back pay for the summer’s work. Every time I heard a hard luck story, I remembered that farmer’s trust in me, and usually, I yielded to the temptation of imitating his action. But alas, many strangers whom I trusted never remembered to pay me back. Even in recent years, I have allowed myself to be fooled for small sums by remembering that earlier experience. At that time, cadets to West Point Military Academy were still appointed as a matter of political favor by members of Congress rather than the competitive examinations that now prevail. I conceived the idea of trying to get an appointment as a cadet and rationalized this in terms of getting my education for nothing. However, I am now quite certain that there was also an unconscious sadistic drive that helped me to accept that rationalization. Nevertheless, I failed to get the appointment. Later when I was practicing law in Utah, I recognized that same sadistic element in my character when I was tempted to use the law as a means of hurting others. I got something of a reputation for being the kind of lawyer who never quit. On the whole, this tendency pushed me into activities that, while controversial, proved useful in getting me the kind of reputation that brought me clients. Over the next several years I worked intermittingly between school and surveying parties in Iowa, Missouri, Colorado, and New Mexico. Often these interruptions affected my grades, and on more than one occasion, I failed to pass my exams. For example, it took me three tries before I passed my exam in chemistry. I suppose, if truth be told, I did the absolute minimum required to graduate. By 1886, when I received my B.S. degree in civil engineering, I was placed in charge of an entire construction crew. The “wild and wooly” aspects of the West were passing but I did get 38 some glimpses of them, especially in Colorado. Eventually, however, I tired of the job and took a railroad pass to Salt Lake City, and after a short stay there, I went to Pocatello, Idaho. There I bought a couple of ponies from the Blackfoot Indians and started for Montana by way of Yellowstone Park. I rode one horse, while the other carried my blankets, frying pan, ammunition, fishing tackle, and a little food. I rode four hundred miles, shot game, caught fish for a living, and slept under the sky. I met no white men except in the park. In a few weeks, I arrived in Livingston, Montana. My ponies were footsore, not being shod, and having traveled over stony trails and lava beds, could not stand much more travel. I tried to sell them and failed. A gambler proposed to shake his dice to determine whether he gave me my price for the ponies, or whether I accepted his price which was $10. Of course, I lost. From there I went by boxcar to Butte, Montana. The brakeman on the freight train collected as much money as he could and permitted forty of us to ride the train. It stopped a few miles outside of Butte where we were told to get out and walk to town. I and another hobo got jobs as dishwashers in a local restaurant. Next, I started for San Francisco via an emigrant train. This was cheap riding but a smelly affair since the foreigners had traveled from New York City where, besides sleeping in the cars, they lived and cooked their meals. Once I arrived, I received my back pay for the work done in Colorado. That left me free to wander about a little and attend a meeting of the National Educational Association where several thousand women away from home were looking for adventure. The San Francisco of that day was still a frontier town of wide-open hospitality. I then went north and south indulging my youthful wanderlust, and succeeded in borrowing money to get back to “god’s country.” But to be honest with myself, I preferred the “devil’s country.” I may be getting my dates a little mixed but I think it was the following year that I went to work for the Duluth South Shore and Atlantic Railway on a survey that resulted in the line from Duluth to Sioux St. Marie. I lived on the northern peninsula of Michigan in a tent with a thermometer at times forty below zero. Similarly, I lived in a tent in Missouri and saw the thermometer register one hundred sixteen in the shade. All in all, I tried nearly everything at least once and usually knew how to extract some lessons from my mistakes. In all the places I worked, I had my eye on young Indian girls and waitresses in the camps who I found attractive. Let it also be said that I always had a book in my hand. Having little interest in fiction or the arts, I chose to read Ingersoll, Ludwig Feuerbach, Arthur Schopenhauer, John Stuart Mill, Herbert Spencer, John Fiske, Ernst Haeckel, and Thomas Paine. I think they taught me more than my professors ever did. Admittedly, I learned only a rudimentary amount of art, music, and literature. They were simply not my cup of tea. * * * During my wanderlust years, I associated with people from nearly every part of the world and exhibited every known kind of habit and thinking. There were professional killers and mushy molly coddlers; crooked politicians and honest prostitutes; bums and bankers; pimps and preachers; university professors and restaurant dishwashers; “gods” and atheists; jailbirds and jolly good fellows; professional gamblers and professional scientists; thieving peasants and exploiting plutocrats and profligates. All these and more I studied with boyish curiosity. A good instinctive insight enabled me to absorb a considerable amount of uncoordinated and misinterpreted raw material. Later in life, after I submitted myself to psychoanalysis, all these diversified experiences became a great storehouse of coordinated psychological data. 39 Do you do your thinking after the fashion of infants, hystericals, and the “social scientists?” That is to ask, do you think only through and for your sensations, feelings, and fantasies? Do you do only wishful and fearful thinking, through and for your unconscious loves and hates? Or—is your thinking deliberately done to ensure a maximum of correction for your immature and conflicting urges? That is for the checking of your love for your sensations and habits. Or to secure a maximum of illusional comfort? Or for your more intelligent adjustment, to all the known facts of life, including the “natural law” of your emotional and intellectual growing up? Do you use such methods of objective thinking as require the constant deliberate correction of every predisposition, concerning every one of your personal and social problems? In short, do you think for the justification or the correction of your childish prejudices? Do you both desire and succeed in subordinating your existing cravings and habitual actions to the acceleration of the wholesome processes of our evolving, maturing human nature? That is to say, our psycho-social evolution? If you do that kind of thinking, then you have almost outgrown the erudite infantilism of the pundits who run our schools for the mass production of standardized robots and popular brands of culturine. Like many others, I have found myself puzzled by irreconcilable urges. On the one hand, was the desire to cooperate fully with all others to promote human welfare. On the other hand, was my devotion to individualism. This conflict came into being because I saw so many applications of the latter doctrine which made impossible the accomplishment of the former. Without knowing it, I was a “split personality” and the above seemingly irreconcilable conflict was symptomatic. Later, I was psychoanalyzed and started on the road to a fairly well-unified personality. As I outgrew my irreconcilable urges, my energies became detached from specific goals and were transferred to the use and the fruits of more mature intellectual methods. Where formerly cooperation and individualism had been functioning as if ends in themselves, or as a means to some very specific end, these theories I now saw as rationalizations for abstracted aspects of the natural process of psycho-social evolution. Thus, absolute individualism and the complete subordination of the individual to the needs of cooperation are seen as different aspects of the unattainable perfect society. If this could ever be achieved, complete voluntary cooperation and absolute individualism would have become identical. Now I am content to do my uttermost toward accelerating psycho-social evolution as the best means toward the unattainable perfection. 40 Chapter 2 Stormy Utah Years: 1889-1901 I first visited Utah in the summer of 1885 as part of a surveying crew after graduating with my civil engineering degree and before applying to law school. Four years later, I arrived in Salt Lake City with a half dozen law books and less than $100 in my pocket. Once accepted to the bar in August of 1889, I proceeded to establish my law practice. In 1891, I returned briefly to Madison where I married Mary Parkinson in a civil ceremony in her parent’s home. During my university years, I met Mary who was a student at the time and daughter of one of my professors, John Barber Parkinson,14 who taught a variety of subjects including mathematics, civil polity, constitutional law, and international law. He was also vice president of the university and a Mormon elder. Mary had been teaching mathematics at Madison High School for several years when I met her. Once we were married, we returned to Salt Lake City so that I could continue my career as an attorney. I am not quite sure of my reasoning for choosing Utah to practice law except to say that I thought the Mormons suffered unnecessarily from their Gentile neighbors and I thought it important to help them. I discerned fully at the time that religion had been a source of real conflict in my life from an early age given that my Catholic mother had been disowned by her parents for marrying my Lutheran father. Perhaps I had a desire to study a new religious movement in the making, and at the time, Mormonism presented the ideal opportunity. I know now that my sentimentalism had blinded me to the fact that the Mormons were quite capable of persecuting the Gentiles who lived in their midst. Over the course of my ten years in Utah, I partnered in three legal firms: Stephens and Schroeder (1889-1892), Jones and Schroeder (1893-1899), and Rives and Schroeder (1899-1901). Much of the work consisted of debt collection and land claims, both of which offered me a decent income, including the opportunity and the means to invest in mining ventures and real estate which provided me with much-needed income in later years. At the time, the city numbered nearly 45,000 inhabitants and grew to about 54,000 during the ten years I was there. Soon after my arrival, I became one of the founders of the First Unitarian Society of Salt Lake City and played a small role in the reorganization of the Salt Lake Herald to make it the official organ of the Democratic Party which generally championed the Mormons, while the Salt Lake Tribune represented the non-Mormon elements in the state. Finally, I assisted the movement to obtain statehood against the protests of most non-Mormons. As a way of making myself known while building a legal practice, I gave occasional lectures, one of which was on Thomas Paine. In it, I spoke of his Common Sense pamphlet that stirred American patriotism as nothing else had done; how he contributed with both pen and sword on behalf of the American revolutionaries; and how, when the war was over, after saying that his “home was where freedom was not,” he embarked for France where he wrote Rights of Man in 14 John Barber Parkinson (1833-1927) was author of Memories of Early Wisconsin and the Gold Mines (1921) which began with his reminiscences of life in southern Wisconsin in the late 1830s through the early 1850s before trekking the goldfields of California. After three years in California, he returned to Wisconsin to attend college. His daughter Mary Parkinson Schroeder (1836-1896) was the second oldest of six siblings and five half-siblings. Figure 4: Mary Parkinson 41 answer to Edmund Burke’s criticism of the French Revolution. He was made a citizen of France and given a seat in the Chamber of Deputies before being thrown into prison for displeasing Robespierre, only to be miraculously saved from the guillotine. His Age of Reason, which he wrote in 1794, faced the scorn of most Christians for promoting natural religion, rejecting miracles, and viewing the Bible as an ordinary piece of literature. The lectures were well received by the press and had a positive effect on my practice. Mormon Politics Before 1891, the people of the Utah territory were divided not on typical political party lines but by religion. When I arrived, the territory was slightly above 200,000 in a population of which about thirty percent was non-Mormon. One group, known as the People’s Party, supported those seeking governmental positions who represented the views of the Mormon Church. All those not members of the Mormon church tended to rally under the banner of the Liberal Party. The only exception occurred during the presidential election years when Utah’s political aspirants assembled briefly around the traditional Democratic and Republican party lines to send delegates to their respective national conventions. Otherwise, the People’s and Liberal parties prevailed in the domestic politics of the Utah Territory. Still, many sought to transform its territorial and religious politics into a traditional party system. To achieve this, a so-called “sagebrush democratic movement” formed in 1888 largely to cut loose from the politics and prejudices that remained transfixed around the Mormon church. Early in 1890, inspired by the belief that the time had come when the best political results might be achieved through a division on Republican/Democratic party lines, about forty individuals, including myself, helped organize the first Democratic Club of Utah in Salt Lake City and made the Salt Lake Herald the official organ of the Democratic Party. Included among our members were Henry C. Lett, John W. Judd, U.S. Attorney Thomas Marshall, A. G. Norrell, J. R. Letcher, Frank H. Dryer, Joseph L. Rawlins, C. W. Barratt, and H. V. Meloy. Together, we organized a Democratic Society and published a declaration of principles. Others did the same in Ogden and Provo. As I pointed out earlier, the Democrats tended to champion the Mormons while the Republicans represented the Gentiles or the non-Mormon population. That, of course, would eventually change. Within months, the People’s Party through its duly constituted agents and representatives formally dissolved, leaving its members free to ally themselves with either of the political parties according to their preferences. On May 20th, a group of Democrats met at which time they appointed a committee to organize a Democratic Party which the highest authorities in the Mormon Church identified with at the time. At the ensuing summer election for members of the territorial legislature, the total vote cast was about 28,000 of which Republicans and Liberals each received about 7,000 and the Democrats 14,000. The votes were so distributed, however, that the Republicans failed to elect a single member in either house. The Democrats carried two-thirds and the Liberals one-third in each body. The one great obstacle to moving to a national party structure had been the belief on the part of many that so long as the Mormon Church maintained its position relative to polygamy, no political party division of the people would be possible. This obstacle, however, was practically 42 settled in the fall of 1890 when Mormon president, Wilford Woodruff,15 announced his celebrated “Manifesto” renouncing the practice of polygamy. When issued, it rendered possible for the People’s and Liberal parties to transform into traditional party structures. In 1891, the Democratic organization was launched setting forth the principles of the National Democratic Party and calling upon all regardless of past political affiliations to join in building the organization in harmony with the ideas of the party. The Salt Lake Herald, founded in 1870, was a conspicuous promoter of the Mormon point of view. Colonel William Hyde, a veteran journalist connected with the St. Louis Republic, managed the paper. Its competitor was the Salt Lake Tribune, started in 1871 by three excommunicated members of the Mormon church who intended for the paper to be entirely secular with no religious affiliation whatsoever. The paper emerged out of the ruins of the Utah Magazine that failed due to a boycott by Mormons who accused the paper of being anti-church. Later, in 1901, the Tribune was purchased by Thomas Kearns who eliminated its anti-Mormon bias. There was also the Deseret News founded as a biweekly in 1850. While it functioned as a regular newspaper, it was filled with church-related items reflecting Mormon theology and values and eventually became the official organ of the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints. What is known as the “Home Rule Bill” was introduced into both houses of Congress in January of 1892. Under its provisions, the legislative, judicial, and executive officers were elected by the people but subject to the laws of Congress. Immediately after the introduction of this measure, the leading Republicans in the territory caused an Enabling Act to be introduced, and after hearings before committees of both houses and a favorable report upon the Home Rule Bill had been presented, both measures were left without any action taken. Nevertheless, it drew attention to the changed conditions in the Utah Territory that materially aided in bringing the people of Utah and the nation more fully in touch. Up to this time, the question of statehood had not been an especially troublesome matter, it being tacitly conceded that until the dissolution of the Liberal party had been effected, it might be best to ignore the question. To bring the issue to the forefront, I wrote using the pseudonym of “A.T. Heist,” an obvious play on the word atheist, to explain that the Liberal and People’s political parties never should have existed. Although the People’s Party had disbanded, the Liberals, whose strength I believed, came from the Masonic fraternity, insisted on presenting a strong front against the Mormon church and its organization. As I noted previously, when I arrived in Salt Lake City, I had been mistakenly convinced that the Mormons were being persecuted and were therefore the lesser of the evils in comparison with the Protestant-dominated Liberal Party which was the political arm of the Christian persecutors of Mormons as I then felt. I approached Mormonism with an unconscious psychological preparedness to be pro-Mormon. Accordingly, I was predisposed to accept as the whole truth any stories of persecution by orthodox Christians that were told by Mormons. It seemed to me but a repetition of the historic persecutions of the Christian Church with which I had become familiar. My sentimentalism had blinded me to the facts, later discovered, that the Mormons were quite capable of even more bitter persecution of apostates than that which was inflicted upon them. 15 Wilford Woodruff (1807-1898) was a native of Connecticut, joined the LDS in 1833, served two missions before being ordained an Apostle in 1839. A member of the Quorum of the Twelve, he served four more missions and became Church President in 1889, dedicating the temple in Salt Lake City. After claiming to have received a revelation, he wrote the Manifesto, testifying that the Church had ceased to practice polygamy. 43 As a consequence, I was one of the few non-Mormon members of the People’s Party who opposed Liberal Party politics. Collectively we were called “Jack-Mormons.” This explains the context of a poem I published under the pseudonym of “A. T. Heist.” Oh, Liberal party! Debased by slavery or corrupt by power, Who knows thee well must quit thee with disgust, Degraded mass of animated dust. Thy love is lust, thy friendship all a cheat, Thy smiles hypocrisy, thy words deceit; By nature, vile, ennobled but by name Most any brute might bid thee blush for shame. A.T. Heist Before the fall election of 1891, I wrote several letters to the newspapers on behalf of the People’s Party discrediting what I saw as Liberal Party rule in Salt Lake City. One of my first letters, again using my pseudonym “A. T. Heist,” was published in September 1891 and included an attack upon the Patriotic Order of Sons of America which I looked upon as an intolerant anti-Catholic and anti-Mormon organization. As a lawyer, I took pleasure in the court proceedings that resulted in breaking up the society. In the article “Is Ready for Statehood” in the Salt Lake Herald, I offered a rejoinder to the argument that the Mormon population of Utah was un-American and therefore not ready for statehood. If by this beautifully vague word, “un-American,” you mean that a large part of Utah’s population is only naturalized citizens and that this is an objection to statehood, then I pray you why do you not ask that Wisconsin, Minnesota, and other northern states, or even New York City, be expelled from the Union? I insist that the right of local self-government in any community cannot be made to depend upon the accident of its inhabitants’ birthplace. The right to participate in the affairs of the government under which a man makes his home is one inherent in man and not belonging to points of the compass, or climate. When the people of any territory apply for admission into the Union, three questions, and only three, should be asked: One, have the people the intelligence to appreciate the liberty that belongs to them? Second, have they the morality to prevent the wanton abuse of the liberty they demand? Third, has the community within itself the means of protecting each citizen in his inalienable rights of life, liberty, and property? 44 The second objection urged in Utah’s statehood is the possible re-establishment of polygamy. In my judgment, this is as improbable as the re-establishment of slavery. Both found their justification in the supposed words of God; both found their extinction in the light of rational men; and all rejoice in the dawn of this new era. The Mormon church has renounced polygamy in the only way in which any church ever changed its creed, and I can conceive no motive that would encourage its re-establishment. In the last twenty years of experience with the Mormon people, I find many a heart-rending scene that would make them dread a return to the old conditions. I, therefore, give it as my unqualified opinion that polygamy will not be and cannot be re-established in Utah, either with or without statehood. The third objection to Utah’s statehood is the supposed danger of a union of church and state. As an opponent to this union, I yield second place to none, but I have both as much and as little use for the Mormon church as any other. When I remember that only a short time ago the Mormons might have carried that union almost to the full extent with hardly a dissenting voice, and then compare their record during that period with the record of other churches in other states, I am forced to believe that there is less danger of union of church and state here than anywhere else. In Minnesota nuns in the garb of their religious order have been employed as teachers in the public schools. The parallel of this offense cannot be found in Utah. The Methodist church of Utah, in religious convention assembled, adopted a resolution endorsing a political party, while the Mormon church through its officials and in general conference, even in its worst days, always had a sufficient sense of decency left to deny the existence of, or desire for, church influence in politics. The Presbyterian Church of Utah has been sufficiently thoughtless of the rights of others to demand the use of the Bible in the public schools of Utah. Many churches in the states are making similar demands. I have never known that even a hint was made by the Mormons suggesting such use of the Book of Mormon. When I remember these things, together with the constant and persistent attack that is being made upon the Constitution of the United States and the liberty of Americans by such organizations as the National Reform Club, the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, and the Christian clergy generally, when they demand congressional Sunday legislation and an amendment to the constitution by which Congress will compel the use of the Bible in the public schools of a state, irrespective of the wishes of the people in that state, I cannot be but profoundly impressed with the fact that my liberties would be at least as safe, and probably far safer, in the hands of a Mormon state than in the hands of a Christian state. As the 1892 election got underway, delegates to the U.S. Congress were placed in the field by each of the organizations, the Democrats led by Joseph Lafayette Rawlins, the Republican forces by Frank J. Cannon, and the Liberals by Clarence E. Allen. After a hard-fought battle, the result showed a total vote in the territory of nearly 34,000 of which the Liberals received about 7,000, the Republicans 12,000, and the Democrats 15,000, the Democratic nominee for Congress 45 being elected by a plurality of nearly 3,000 votes. The Democratic legislature selected Rawlings to the 53rd Congress in appreciation for the able services he had rendered. He was an unsuccessful candidate for reelection in 1894 to the 54th Congress but later served in the U.S. Senate from 1897 to 1903. At the time, many assumed the Democratic Party and the Mormon leadership made for a strong alliance. In December 1893, the Liberal Party formally disbanded leaving its members to align themselves with either of the two national parties. Since the majority of the Liberals were Republican in their politics, the complexion of the legislature changed even though the Democrats still had a plurality. However, when the Republican Party stopped assailing the Mormons on the matter of polygamy and its authoritarian type of church organization, the Utah electorate inched toward the Republican side of the aisle. Mormon social and economic beliefs were conservative by nature and many businessmen were drawn to Republican policies on banking, railroads, and protectionism which meant high tariffs. Beginning with the presidency of Joseph F. Smith, the church hierarchy turned definitively toward the Republican Party, and by 1900, the alliance had become a permanent fixture. In the election of 1894 for members of the Utah legislature, the three parties were again in the field, and out of a total vote of over 33,000, the Democrats received over 16,000, the Republicans over 14,000, and the Liberals a little over 3,000. Out of the total membership in the legislative assembly of 36, the Republicans elected 5 members in the Counsel and 10 members in the House; the Democrats elected 5 members in the Council and 8 members in the House, and the Liberals elected 2 members in the Council and 6 members in the House. This resulted in Republican Frank J. Cannon being selected as Utah’s delegate to Congress and the Republicans dominating the delegates to its Constitutional Convention. In 1896, however, the Utah Democrats drew an amazing 80 percent of the presidential vote for William Jennings Bryan and won a plurality as well for local offices. In the meantime, at the close of 1893, the Enabling Act for the admission of Utah passed the U.S. House of Representatives, and in July 1894, passed the Senate and was signed by the president. As stated under the provisions of this act, an election was to be held on the 6th of November 1894 to choose 107 delegates, variously apportioned among the several counties to write a state constitution. When approved, the constitution included in its ordinances an irrevocable prohibition against polygamy. With its inclusion, Utah became the 45th state in the Union on January 4, 1896. Changing Sides Only after I had helped the Mormons obtain statehood did I begin to seriously study the history of the Latter-Day Saints and realize that I had fooled myself into believing that political Mormonism was a lesser evil than political Christianity, at least in Utah. Until then, I had sided with the People’s Party believing that the Mormon character had been maligned. When everybody else had quit fighting Mormonism and was now playing politics to get Mormon votes, I entered the fight. Nevertheless, the control by the Mormon Church had become a reality in Utah politics all with a minimum of opposition. To a limited extent, I too was guilty of making it happen. As I now look back on my earlier activities, they look immature. But I eventually became wise to 46 Mormonism’s intentions and decided to fight, writing numerous articles exposing the church and its inconsistencies. To the extent that my suspicions were aroused, I began to collect materials on the Church. Before long, I had acquired a library of several thousand volumes of Mormon literature, including several hundred volumes that previously belonged to Brigham Young. By unremitted study, I made myself probably the greatest living authority on Mormonism outside the church and used it with a ferocity that had never been shown before that time. As a result, I became one of its most trenchant critics exposing the fraudulency, hypocrisy, immorality, and irreligion of the whole scheme. Mormonism fascinated me, and as I read, I became impressed with the sexual undercurrents in its theology as well as in its practices. My study of the peculiarities of Mormon theology was helped along by the preparation I had gotten from the writings of Ingersoll and the Hegelian atheist Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach16 whose book, The Essence of Christianity (1841), provided a critique of Christianity that contributed a special slant to my research interests. These, in turn, contributed to my erotogenic interpretation of religion. That, of course, came later but not before compelling me to study sexual psychology. Reading this Mormon material brought me a new perspective on the laws against obscenity, and from there to a more mature interpretation of the Bills of Rights and civil liberties. All of that was yet to come. Nevertheless, this episode in my life was undoubtedly spurred on by my study of Mormonism. When I came to a clear break with the sycophants of Mormon Church politics, no paper would publish what I wanted to say. Admittedly, my language tended to be a bit pretentious, if not blasphemous by their standards. However, having found Mormonism vulnerable in multiple areas, including polygamy, factionalism, and militancy, my first major article, “Mormonism Considered: Thoughts Suggested by a Study of Mormonism,” which I published at my own expense, drove home its hypocrisy. I later prepared a lecture around the same topic which I delivered before a crowded hall. Unlike most Mormon critics, I represented myself as a free-thinker. As such, I explained that there was no folly in Mormonism that did not find some parallel in Bible Christianity. I had no more confidence in the divine inspiration of “the Prophet” Joseph Smith than I had in Jesus. The man who, in Illinois, was familiarly known as “Holy Joe, the White Hat Prophet,” had been transformed by the Mormons into the dearest and most divine of human forms. In the lecture, I admitted there was some good to be found in most religions, including the Mormons. Therefore, it was important to cling to and magnify that good, but it was equally important to discard the fancied idols of visionary prophets and the celestial hobgoblins of our half-civilized ancestors. I urged my listeners to place all the dread phantoms of fear in the black casket of superstitions and sink them deep beneath the sod of oblivion. 16 Ludwig Andreas Feuerbach (1804-1872) played a major role in the spread of post-Hegelian philosophy and the growth of naturalism, materialism, and positivism. He is often identified with the “projection” theory of religion which seeks to identify the psychological and cognitive mechanisms thought to give rise to religious beliefs. He viewed Christianity as inimical to reason and philosophy. In The Essence of Christianity (1843), he claims that Christianity is predicated upon the concept of God as an alienation of human beings from their own species essence. In it he contrasts the egoism and intolerance of faith with the altruism of love. 47 Family Crisis While I was making myself heard in Salt Lake City politics, my wife, who was just thirty-three years old, died leaving me with our only daughter Theodora. Mary had been ill for some time and had just undergone an operation when I was called out of town. No sooner had I arrived in Beaver, Utah, when I received word that she had died. Feeling unable to take care of Theodora, I sent her to live with her grandparents in Madison. Theodora would die a few years later in 1901 after a failed appendectomy and was buried beside her mother. That same year, my mother died after a long illness, and my father died in late March 1902. Thus, within a space of just a few years, I lost my wife, daughter, mother, and father. My father’s death drew me into a legal squabble with my cousin Erma Ross, the daughter of one of my father’s two brothers. It seems that after the death of my mother, my father asked Erma, who was a widow and mother of a small child, to come and tend to him. She did so, she said, after being given assurances by my father that she could expect some compensation out of the estate when my father died. In particular, she expected to receive the family home. He even put it in writing. As she wrote me: I went to Dakota to take care of your father in his old age. To smooth the downward path to conduct the affairs of his household with a view to his convenience and comfort, I took upon myself a burden that might last for all I knew for years. I absented myself from my friends and pursuits that were congenial to me to become a stranger in a strange land. Do you think I would do this for a mere living? Do you think that even money for myself would have been a sufficient inducement? No! It was for Ellen that I might earn enough in one sum sufficient to secure her from absolute want and dependence on others that I made this sacrifice. I made a fair and above-board agreement with your father that I would take care of him during his life and receive my pay from his estate. I did not know what it might be for years. And it was all for Ellen. Now by your persistent efforts to thwart the wishes of your father to mollify his honest obligations, you have caused Ellen to lose one-half of what was by the laws of God and man due her, for it has cost me this much in legal expenses. I am sure that it can but ill accord with the dictates of your nature to thus cloud the future and obstruct the path of a comparatively friendless little girl. I felt, on the contrary, that she and her attorney, William C. Issenhuth, had cheated my father by forcing him to sign the document. Erma was grieved that I could be so cold. In my defense, I don’t believe any such understanding had been made. What I discerned was that she wanted a renewal of our earlier relationship, and when repulsed, she acted as a woman scorned. My response was as follows: I have been some time considering what I could write to you. To re-enter a social correspondence without a full statement of my attitude toward you, would mislead you. To Figure 5: Theodora Schroeder 48 write what seems imperative would be sure to be misinterpreted both in spirit and substance. Feel assured that I have no ill will toward you. It is rather a feeling of discomfiture, such as comes from dread, from fear. I cannot yet rid my imagination of unpleasant scenes that might have come. In my mind’s eye, I see myself in a helpless sickness and perturbed mind with a trusted companion saying to me: “Give me more money than is my due, or you die alone.” Perhaps nothing in my experience warrants such contemplations. That is not the question . . . hoping for the time when my impulse to avoid you has changed to one of longing, I remain, as one who is only indifferent. In the end, Erma was left with nothing for tending to my father. Admittedly, I received the bulk of my father’s estate and was able to retire from active practice based on what I inherited, plus my investments in Utah mining and real estate. Lucifer’s Lantern In April 1897, I published a pamphlet titled The Gospel Concerning Church and State. It was an ironical defense of Mormonism based upon exact quotations from church documents. I signed it “Juab, a high private in Israel.” It created considerable commotion since it was thought to have been written by someone high up in the church because of the author’s familiarity with church theology. Essentially, it caught Mormons in their inconsistencies. However, once it was discovered that I had written the pamphlet, efforts were undertaken to find errors in my statements; they even created false stories about me. As an example, I was accused of leasing a house for prostitution and presented with a stack of alleged documents showing bank receipts, sub-leases, and all sorts of papers proving their story. I was also called “Three P” Schroeder for “preachers, profligates, and prostitutes” and highlighted in the following anonymous poem. Vile, Vile Mr. Schroeder Me And my Three Ps Ah, me Why did I say it? Why? I Thought it was funny But Now I see 49 It wasn’t My mouth went off Half-cocked In fact, It was a case of didn’t know It Was loaded. My Mouth Was old enough To Know Better. Why didn’t I leave it at home? Some men can talk For an hour And Say nothing. I talked for five minutes And Look at what I said. Look at it. Then Look at me. Three Ps Ah, me. Plural Wives None of this deterred me from my intentions and so I decided to involve myself in one of the major feuds that existed within the Mormon church, namely polygamy. Following the murder of Joseph Smith on June 27, 1844, by an anti-Mormon mob while being held in jail in Carthage, Illinois, the Mormons split into factions. Elder Sidney Rigdon, who had been ordained by Smith 50 as “Prophet, Seer, and Revelator,” also claimed to be the “Guardian” and “Protector” of the church following Smith’s death. Known as the “Rigdonites,” he and his followers settled in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Another much larger group of Mormons, whose leader was Brigham Young, president of the Quorum of the Twelve, was led out of Nauvoo in February 1846 to avoid further violence. He and his group of “Brighamites” relocated his supporters to the Salt Lake Valley which was part of Mexico at the time. He called it the “State of Deseret” in 1849. Following the War with Mexico, Congress created the Utah Territory and President Millard Fillmore appointed Young as its first governor. Young then proceeded to establish Mormon settlements in Idaho, Arizona, Nevada, California, Colorado, and northern Mexico; authorized militia actions to exterminate Native Americans; supported the construction of the continental railroad; established the University of Deseret (later renamed the University of Utah); legalized slavery; and designated the location of the Salt Lake Temple. Soon after establishing his leadership, Young acknowledged the doctrine of polygamy, arguing that the Prophet Joseph had not only practiced polygamy but sanctioned it in the form of a revelation he received in July 1843 even though his wife, Emma Hale Smith, denied that any such authorization had been made. After Joseph Smith’s death, his plural wives went to Utah with Young who added them to his own family. The Brighamites, known as the Church of Jesus Christ of the Latter-Day Saints (LDS), acknowledged three types of marriage: the ordinary marriage for life; one for this life and eternity; and one for only eternity. They accepted polygamy, or plural marriage, as a means of securing Mormon women their eternal salvation. A dissident faction that followed Joseph Smith III, became known as the “Josephites” and identified themselves as the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (RLDS). At the time, however, Joseph III was only eleven old. Although many of the Saints urged him to succeed his father immediately, because of his age, they were unable to prevent Brigham Young from grabbing the reins of leadership. Not until 1860 did Joseph Smith III claim the presidency of the RLDS, and in 1866, led his followers to Lamoni, Iowa, and eventually to Independence, Missouri. Congress passed a law in July 1862 abolishing polygamy and then reinforced it by passing the Poland Act in 1874. Nevertheless, polygamy continued to be practiced among the Mormons and became an open secret that no one seemed to care about. Because of that, Congress passed the Edmunds Act of 1882 to strengthen the prohibition, including disqualifying and disfranchising any polygamist, bigamist, or cohabitationist, from entering public office. An additional Edmunds-Tucker Law, which passed without President Cleveland’s signature, dissolved the Nauvoo Legion, a paramilitary component of the sect. It wasn’t however until Wilford Woodruff issued a Manifesto (not a revelation) in September 1890 abandoning polygamy (but not the “Principle”) that plural marriage was officially discontinued to obtain statehood. Even though the Utah Constitution prohibited polygamy, upwards of ten percent continued the practice. While I fought for statehood for the Utah Territory, I insisted that polygamy, which was still actively practiced, be ended. As I mentioned earlier, I had no dislike of the Mormon people, only their beliefs which I found to be foolish hypocrisy, and had no difficulty quoting Mormons against each other, showing holes in their documents, and hinting at their predilection to sexual fixations. Beginning in June 1898, and continuing through 1900, I published a series of pamphlets (nine issues, 195 pages in all) titled Lucifer’s Lantern: A Parrchesiam Periodical about Peculiar People and issued whenever the spirit moved me and the purse permitted me. Each of the nine 51 pamphlets contained several articles that were documented and rigorously anti-Mormon. Some of those that I particularly liked were: “Polygamy and Inspired Lies” (No. 1); “Mormon Advice to Methodist Ministers” (No. 1); “Some Facts Concerning Polygamy” (No. 1); “Godly Grogshops” (No. 2); “The Imphood and the Churches” (No. 2); “Mexican Battalion Again” (No. 2); “The Gospel Concerning Education” (No. 3); “Rebellion and that Prophecy” (No. 3); “Sanctified Lust” (No 4.); “Preachers and the Priesthood” (No. 4); “New York Times vs. George Q. Cannon” (Nos. 5-6); “Roberts’ Gentile Support” (No. 7); “Thoughts Suggested by the Study of Mormonism” (No. 7); “Thoughts on the Mormon Problem and Its Solution” (No. 8);” “Mistaken Methods of fighting Mormonism” (No. 8); “Center of Information: Sword of Laban” (No. 8); and finally, “Mormon ‘Apostles’ as Counterfeiters” (No. 9); “Bit of Original Evidence” (No. 9); and “Was Joseph Smith, ‘The Prophet,’ an Abortionist?” (No. 9). Each issue sold for 25 cents and I signed my name as “A. T. Schroeder, Attorney.” Be it KNOWN to all KINDREDS AND TONGUES that this pious mess was daily AUTHORED and COPYRIGHTED by an agent of LUCIFER THE LIGHT-BEARER, known on earth as A. T. Schroeder, a resident in the shadow of MORONI, close by the SHORES OF THE GREAT SALT SEA. Done in the year NINETY-SIX OF OUR LORD JOE SMITH and the sixtieth year of independence for the TEMPORAL KINGDOM of GOD in UTAH, USA. These anti-Mormon publications earned me my stripes and led me to believe, that despite Mormon pretensions, all religions were culpable in fostering society’s psycho-sexual problems. While Mormonism was arguably the worst of the worst, other religions were not far behind. The object of my publications was to ridicule religion, especially the Mormon religion. I was unmercifully severe and handled the subject without reservation or gloves. I dared many libel suits but got away with it all. When Woodruff died in 1898, he was replaced by Lorenzo Snow until 1901, followed by Joseph F. Smith who remained president for seventeen years and maintained several wives, each of whom was listed in the City Directory. Of the many issues that had importance in their day and the development of Mormonism, the one thing of certain permanent value that I did was a carefully worked-out argument to show that Mormonism was established based on conscious fraud. This I think cannot be said of any other religion, or religious sect. So much for the beginnings of my career as a writer. All the “good” Christian people who heretofore hated me, now looked to me for authoritative help in their opposition to the “Saints,” By 1897, I had earned the title of “The Ingersoll of Mormondom.” My research indicated that although Joseph Smith, his wife Emma, and their son, Joseph III, denied the practice of polygamy, the Apostle Heber C. Kimball modestly admitted that the Prophet had somewhere in the neighborhood of forty to forty-five wives, although the children attributed to him had come only through his lawful wife, Emma Hale Smith. Adamant that her husband had only one wife, she challenged the Utah Mormons, or Brighamites, to produce any children begotten by any of Joseph’s presumed wives. According to the Brighamites’ reasoning, the Prophet’s polygamous wives had been “sealed for eternity” to the Prophet Joseph in the Nauvoo Temple but not for this life, and therefore he produced no offspring aside from those 52 children born by Emma. But for Emma, the absence of children by Joseph’s so-called polygamous wives was used as circumstantial evidence to disprove her husband’s alleged practice of polygamy. In my estimation, however, polygamy among the Josephites remained an official secret, known only to certain Mormons and some of their enemies. I felt that I knew why neither side in the controversy was willing to offer up a full explanation, and using Lucifer’s Lantern as the vehicle to tell the story, I undertook to supply the answer. As I looked into the matter, I discovered to my satisfaction that the “Prophet of God” had conducted a wholesale abortion mill in the Mormon Temple at Nauvoo, Illinois. In the body of the article, I collected considerable circumstantial evidence taken from Nauvoo publications to show that the Temple of Nauvoo was not only a place for solemnizing eternal marriages but also a place where abortions were regularly committed and that the Prophet Joseph was responsible for this secret use of the Temple. From the Mormon point of view, my claim was as offensive to them as Roman Catholics would have felt had I tried to prove that the Virgin Mary had only one child because of the abortions that she had practiced. The Utah Mormons could not and did not wish to accept my explanation. In the absence of a single child of Smith’s by any of his polygamous wives, we instinctively ask, why? Was the prophet impotent? Given his physique and the children of his first wife, the answer is an emphatic, No. Was he an ascetic who shunned the exercise of the sex function as evil? Neither his friends nor his enemies ever suspected him of asceticism. Some who knew him pronounced him the most licentious man on earth. How then are we to account for the absence of children by his polygamous wives? In 1833, the Illinois Legislature passed a law making polygamy criminal, and naturally, Smith wished to avoid furnishing any evidence of his guilt. Can it be that the prophet resorted to abortion? When Doctors Robert Foster and John C. Bennett exposed Smith’s polygamous habits, the “Prophet” by way of defense, said that the doctors were as deep in the mire as he was in the mud. If then, any abortions were committed, Doctors Foster or Bennett would most likely have been invited to superintend the operations. Did they do it? Mrs. Sarah Marinda Bates Pratt, the legal wife of Mormon Apostle Orson Pratt, reported that on one occasion when Dr. Bennett was visiting her home in Nauvoo, she observed that he had partly concealed in his left sleeve an instrument which, upon being produced, was long, apparently composed of steel and crooked at one end, which from the description was probably a catheter. Referring to it, Bennett supposedly remarked: “Oh, a little job for Joseph; one of his women is in trouble.” As was my practice, I sent copies of these pamphlets to Mormon newspapers and other Mormon dignitaries for the State and supplied some to the Church Historian’s Office. Soon, I was informed that an effort was underway to have me arrested for obscenity. This was my first awareness of the existence of anti-obscenity postal laws, and I emotionally formulated for myself reasons why such material was protected under our Bill of Rights. I had been led to this predisposition from the fact that my mother’s Roman Catholic parents had disowned her for marrying a man who had been reared as a Protestant. My mother’s complaint of this intolerant attitude on the part of their parents had given me an emotional predisposition to the widest general tolerance. My relationship with this case was the beginning of an agitation and education on the psychology of obscenity and the historical interpretation of our Bill of Rights which has not yet ended. However, the anti-Mormon feeling was still high in many quarters even though its outward expression was nil. Accordingly, several non-Mormon members of the grand jury refused to concur in the indictment. That was my first acquaintance with the “obscenity” laws, about which I have written so much. To be truthful, I enjoyed every moment of pointing out the lies masquerading to hide the Prophet’s revelation to legitimize his lust. 53 Brigham H. Roberts Brigham Roberts was born in Lancashire, England, in 1857, the same year his parents converted to the Mormon church. In 1866, he and his sister emigrated to the United States where he worked as a miner in the Utah Territory. He married Sarah Louisa Smith in 1878 and graduated from the University of Deseret that same year. He and Sarah had seven children. After graduation, he did missionary work in Tennessee, and on returning to Utah Territory, he took a second wife, Celia Dibble Roberts, who gave him eight children. In 1886, while he was working as associate editor of the Salt Lake Herald, he was arrested for polygamy but fled to England after posting a bond. Two years later, he returned to Salt Lake City where he was chosen to be on the “First Council of the Seventy,” the highest governing body of the LDS. In 1889, Roberts pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor charge against him of unlawful cohabitation and spent five months in jail. When released, he moved to Colorado where he married a third wife, Dr. Margaret Curtis Shipp. This marriage took place after Woodruff issued his 1890 Manifesto. A warrant again went out for Roberts’ arrest for unlawful cohabitation in Salt Lake County. There was also a charge of adultery on file against him in Davis County, with Cecelia Dibble Roberts, being the third member of the congressman’s harem. Nevertheless, Roberts was pardoned in 1894 by President Grover Cleveland. When the People’s and Liberty parties disbanded, Roberts became a Democrat and was elected to the Utah State Constitutional Convention in 1894. In the first election held under statehood, I gave my support to his candidacy for the House of Representatives and I also supported Apostle Moses Thatcher as a candidate for the U.S. Senate. However, both Thatcher and Roberts were soon defrocked, meaning they were dropped from their positions in the Mormon church for having accepted their party’s nomination without first obtaining permission from their ecclesiastical superiors. A year later, the Mormon church issued the “Political Manifesto of 1895” which forbade church officers from running for political office without first obtaining approval from the church. Unlike Thatcher who refused to agree to the Manifesto and was expelled from the Quorum of Twelve Apostles, Roberts apologized for his disobedience and was reinstated in good standing after signing the Manifesto. When Roberts got elected as a Democrat to the 56th Congress in 1898, winning by a plurality of nearly 6,000 votes out of 68,000, I started a fight to disqualify him on several technical grounds. First, I opposed him because he betrayed non-Mormons on the church-state issue. You see, Utah’s statehood had been secured because many of us had represented to Congress, and the people generally, that the Mormon Church would live up to its promise of keeping its ecclesiastical authority out of politics. Roberts had gotten into office by pledging to take political orders from the Mormon church. The Protestant Churches got on the bandwagon and newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst ran away with the show as his chain of papers presented a petition to Congress with several million signatures demanding that Roberts be excluded from the House of Representatives. In June 1899, in an article titled “A Word for the Mormons” in the Arena, author Theodore W. Curtis offered “a certificate of character” for Roberts and those who practiced polygamy. I chose to expose the falseness of the article and took sides with those Mormons who opposed polygamy. Interestingly, Theodore W. Curtis, the individual who presumably authored the article, was the brother of Dr. Maggie Curtis Shipp Roberts, the third wife of Congressman Roberts. I 54 refuted Curtis’ article but was prevented by Paul Tyner, editor of The Arena, from publishing my rebuttal. Instead, the correspondence between Paul Tyner and me was published in the November 1899 issue of The Kinsman, an anti-Mormon journal under the title “Defense of Roberts and Polygamy by His Plural Brother-in-Law.” The correspondence concerned the reply I had given to Curtis’s article. What seemed difficult to get at in the Roberts case was whether or not the Mormons were playing fair; whether they were finished with polygamy and proposed to leave it altogether. Did they propose in the future to uphold the general rules of decent living as promulgated and respected—if not always practiced—elsewhere in the United States? I insisted that they had no such intention. Instead, I suspected the Mormon church of falsities and iniquitous purposes and that its leaders were no less polygamous in desire than they used to be. When asked about my attitude toward the Mormons, I replied that I treated all forms of Christianity with as much contemptuous indifference as permissible. They were all a pack of condemned humbugs, but the Saints were a little worse than the others because of tithing and multifarious connubiality, or something like that; however, the whole bunch was headed for Hades, and all I have to say is the devil take the hindmost! I believed that people generally did not realize the menace of Mormonism and pointed out its strength not only in Utah but in Idaho, Nevada, Wyoming, Colorado, Arizona, and New Mexico. I spoke frequently of the deliberate efforts by the church to hide the practice of polygamy with all manner of deceptions. I said that the Mormon people had promised that unlawful cohabitation would cease as well as plural marriages. Nevertheless, one of the fundamental teachings of the church was that no woman could ever enter heaven unless she was sealed for eternity to some man, and the glory of man hereafter was regulated by the number of women he had sealed to him on earth. That being their faith, I could not see how they could ever fully renounce polygamy. A mass meeting to consider Roberts’ case was held at the First Congregational Church on December 3, 1900, in Washington D.C. to oppose polygamy and the seating of Roberts. Among the speakers was Josiah Strong17 of NY. “It is impossible to strike at Mormon politics,” he argued, “without striking at the Mormon religion. In Utah the Mormon Church and the state are identical. We oppose Mormonism because its practices tend to uproot the affairs of the nation.” I spoke before this group as well. I explained that the question of admission of Mr. Roberts was not one of politics, but one of decency. The fight was not one against Roberts, but against the iniquitous system he represented. In Utah, 75 percent of the people were Mormon and controlled legislation. In Idaho and Wyoming, they held the balance of power and had been able to tie up the legislature until a messenger from Salt Lake City reached their respective capitals and presumably made such deals as were dictated by the Mormon leaders. The Mormons very nearly controlled twelve U.S. Senators and in a close election could determine who might or might not be President of the United States. 17 Josiah Strong (1847-1916) was one of the nation’s leading religious and social voices. A graduate of Lane theological Seminar and a member of the Congregational Church, he advocated for American imperialism, believing that the nation needed to expand its sphere of influence over the heathen world, and supported a form of Christianity known as Christian Socialism. Author of Our Country (1885), he pointed to the nation’s overcrowded cities and immigrant-dominated political parties as eroding American civilization. Nevertheless, the nation was duty-bound because of the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race, to extend its influence outwardly to “life” the inferior members of mankind. 55 In December 1899, the House of Representatives created a special committee to consider the charge that Roberts was a polygamist and therefore not entitled to take his seat in the House. I prosecuted the case before the committee, presenting evidence of Roberts’ polygamy as gathered by Hearst’s detectives. In my view, by living up to the pledge of abstinence from cohabitation with his polygamous wives, he did not deserve the conditional pardon of President Cleveland and therefore was legally disqualified as a part of the statuary penalty on conviction. Roberts not only denied that he was a polygamist but asserted that the committee had no right to deliberate his eligibility since the people of Utah had duly elected him for the position. He then changed his defense asserting that he was cohabiting with another woman which was not the same as plural marriage. Furthermore, on learning that I would be speaking against him, Roberts complained that it was wrong since I was under censure by the Utah courts for unprofessional conduct. The special committee, however, showed little concern with his protest and the investigation went forward. Representative Robert Walker Tayler of Ohio, chaired the House committee. While he said the arguments in election cases were usually open to the public, he doubted that the hearings, particularly such parts as involved family matters, should be open. Behind closed doors, Roberts argued for nearly two hours referring to law books and answering queries. He concluded by asking that his prima facie right to a seat be at once considered as the present status denied to a sovereign state representation in the House at a time when injurious legislation affecting that state might take place. Subsequent meetings were open to the public. During the hearing, I handled the examination of witnesses while Roberts served as his own defense. Before long, it became clear that Roberts did have several wives and children by those wives as well. Directories were even placed in evidence showing the name changes of Roberts’ wives as clear indications of the marriages. From my standpoint, the evidence was clear. Given that both the 1882 and 1887 acts had disfranchised polygamists, I insisted that Roberts was not a “citizen” and therefore not entitled to the privileges of serving in the House of Representatives. Roberts eventually admitted having three families; nor did he deny the birth in August 1897 of twins to Celia Ann Dibble Roberts or his paternity. Under no circumstances would he agree to give up his wives. Upon this uncontradicted evidence, nothing remained but to declare the seat vacant. By a vote of 244 to 50, with 36 abstaining, Roberts was excluded from taking his seat in the House. I was not satisfied with the decision even though it was in my favor. For me, this was a fight for a secularist government. After his defeat to keep his seat, Roberts left politics a bitter man. During the ensuing years, he worked for the Mormon Church producing its official periodical and preparing a six-volume 3,459-page History of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints: Century I, and served as assistant church historian until he died in 1933. I know that he was always puzzled by the fact that I had supported him in 1895 when he had the same number of wives, but Figure 6: Washington star, December 12, 1899 56 opposed him in 1898. I admit to the confusion but, in the end, I felt that Roberts had not lived up to his earlier pledge to abstain from polygamous cohabitation, and it was on that basis that he disqualified himself from serving. My feelings toward the corruptness of the Mormon Church did not end with my victory against Roberts. I later wrote a speech for Congressman Charles B. Landis of Indiana roasting the Mormon Church and its theology to a nice crisp, earning me the title “The Stormy Petrol of Utah.” The philanthropist Helen Miller Gould,18 daughter of railroad baron Jay Gould, financed its circulation throughout the country. Through this hearing and for some years afterward, I wrote magazine articles on many of the historical controversies and contradictions concerning Mormonism. For sure I had burned the last of the bridges that kept me tied to Utah. I became persona non grata and I knew it would affect my legal practice as well. Many felt, I suspect, that I had gone too far with Lucifer’s Lantern and other publications. In 1899, I began discussing with Josiah Strong, president of the League for Social Service, the possibility of my moving to New York and serving as its attorney. Helen Gould also urged me to move. However, the negotiations were not satisfactory to me and I chose to end further discussions. Besides Strong did not take kindly to the fact that I was an agnostic. Thoughts on the Mormon Problem During my stay in Washington and New York, while I was engaged in prosecuting before a Congressional Committee the case against Brigham H. Roberts, it was my good fortune to meet many of those good people who were interested in the Mormon problem. In a few of these, whom I trust I may still call my friends, I thought I discovered what seemed to me erroneous tendencies. Because of that understanding, I published Thoughts on the Mormon Problem and Its Solution in 1900. Some desired to know upon what grounds a monogamous Mormon successor to Mr. Roberts could be excluded from Congress. Others desired to take advantage of defects in the record of Mr. Roberts' naturalization, if his polygamy could not be proven, or should be insufficient as a matter of law. It was as if the end sought was Mr. Roberts' exclusion as a Mormon, and if his alleged polygamy could not be proven, then any other means would be welcome. I should perhaps say that in my humble opinion, polygamy and the materialistic theology so much condemned are not the worst evils of the Mormon system. Neither am I unmindful of the fact that in its prime, Mormon polygamy had an accompaniment of esoteric doctrines, justifying practices which in their essences were scarcely distinguishable from group marriages in Australia, polyandry in India, and the phallic worship in ancient societies. While these have been the most disgusting features, they are, for that very reason, not the most dangerous to free institutions, because they will, as they have done in the past, eventually induce revolt and reformation from within. To my mind, the most dangerous element of Mormonism is the existence of its priesthood, whose voice is the voice of God, whose will is the will of God, and whose doctrines apply to all 18 Helen Miller Gould (1868-1938) was the eldest daughter and philanthropist of railroad financier Jay Gould. A graduate of NYU Law School for Women in 1895, her most charitable work was during the Spanish-American War when she provided $100,000 to the U.S. Government for relief of injured soldiers at Camp Wycoff, Long Island. She spoke on behalf of the Y.M.C.A., and served as vice president of the American Bible Society. She was married to Finley Johnson Shepard, a ‘railroad man.” 57 affairs of life, including temporal government. When you remember that this infallible priesthood can by the use of its power control the political destinies of demagogues and the political parties in five States and Territories, you can imagine that I am not over-estimating the possible evils that could come out of this hierarchy. Especially is this true when that hierarchy boasts of world-conquering ambitions, and proposes here and now to establish the temporal kingdom of God which is to be an outgrowth of the ecclesiastical domination in matters of state. Why is it that the Mormon Church grows despite its evils? A small percentage is, no doubt, attracted toward Mormonism by the very fact of its polygamy. Those who have given thought to the subject have demonstrated the psychical correlation between religious emotion and abnormal sexualism. Eroto-maniacs who find it difficult, or impossible, to satiate their abnormal appetites, welcome Mormonism as a harbinger of peace. They honestly prate about the “emancipation of women through polygamy,” and “the higher freedom” of sainthood, meaning thereby nothing very different from the perfectionism of free-lovers in the Oneida community. In other words, because of the new gospel, they have embraced the “sealing ordinances” performed in the secret temples of the Mormon Church and acquired a perfection that makes it morally right for them to do what would be morally wrong for others. Those who believe proper church authorities to be the “Living Oracles of God,” of whose utterances it is said that whether it is by God's voice, or the voice of His servants, it is the same. From this class came those fanatics who, upon hearing the doctrine of blood-atonement as once publicly taught in the Mormon Church, were ready to cut the throat of an apostate and consoled themselves with the thought that in shedding their neighbor's blood, without which shedding he could not be saved, they carried out the mandate of Jesus to "Love thy neighbor as thy self." They had loved their erring neighbor well enough to shed his blood, and thereby secured to him an eternal exaltation. By the control of these over-faithful ones, a designing priesthood can induce subservience on the part of demagogues outside of the church, and hypocrites within it. These will do, from considerations of expediency, what others do as a matter of religious duty. By these forces, the very essence of free institutions may be destroyed. While yet observing the forms of republican government they, by controlling the conscience of devout followers and affecting the purse or political prospects of others, can make the States under their control what Utah Territory was in the past—the instrument of a cunning priesthood. So that we may better understand these individuals, we must examine closer their antecedents as well as their present intellectual status. It is from the ranks of these hysterical visionary laggards in the evolution of religion that the believers in the revelations of Mother Anne Lee of Shaker fame, the followers of a Swedenborg, and the prophets of the Seventh-Day Adventists derive their origins. Thence came the advocates of spiritual wifery in the Old World, the Free-lovers of the Oneida community, the modern believers in witchcraft, the spiritual brides of Mathias the prophet, the “angels” of a Schweinforth, the dupes of Dowie, the Zionist, as well as the miracle-working, polygamous Mormons. These laggards have failed to profit from the improvement that modern civilization has made upon the crudities of Christianity’s childhood, and look with misgivings and suspicion on the advanced minister and his “higher criticism.” All the weaknesses of these medieval Christians are well known to the Mormon missionary. He insists on literalism in interpreting the Bible, and thus he swallows the Old Testament as well as the New, and Jonah as well as Solomon. He points to the improvement made 58 by modern civilization upon primitive Christianity as evidence that the whole Christian church has apostatized from its genuine beginning and that Mormonism is a necessary reestablishment of the gospel in its original purity. With the gospel has been restored the gift of healing the sick, raising the dead, casting out devils, immediate and continuous revelations, the "living oracles," and "the temporal kingdom of God," in which He reigns through His priesthood. Mormonism promises its converts more than any other church of which I know. If a candidate for sainthood manifests any interest in Mormonism, he is advised to go to God in prayer and ask for the fulfillment of the Bible's promise, and that he who seeks shall find. This victim of superstitions now fervently prays for testimony from on high as to whether or not Mormonism is true. His very earnest anticipation suggests and directs the course of his dreams, which are interpreted and accepted as God's manifested approval of the Latter-day gospel. Now he "knows" that Mormonism is true. It is not a belief, not a matter arrived at by processes of logic, but a matter of direct and personal knowledge coming to him through his sixth, or spiritual, sense. He boasts of "that peace which passeth understanding," and looks with pity upon those unfortunates who, for want of a proper spiritual perception, think him in error. A trainload of Bibles and an army of fifteenth-century theologians can never disillusionize this new convert. His faith and his folly are based on the Bible. A wrong interpretation of it, if you please, but what he "knows" is an inspired and infallible interpretation. There are but two ways of restoring such a man. One is by the long, and to him often arduous or even impossible, process of education which will give him a scientific knowledge of the psychology of dreams. The other is to show him by Mormon literature that his testimony is unreliable, in that it by necessary implication involves God's endorsement of almost every folly and crime, because the "Living Oracles" of his church have, by practice or precept, justified nearly all of them. So long as a belief in the "Living Oracles" exists, no argument based upon Bible premises can be effective. Here, then, is the real problem. How are we to deal with these honest fanatics, who, when left to the guidance of their instincts would, in the main, follow the well-beaten path of the average man's morals? What are we to do to prevent these often unscrupulous and always selfish "mouthpieces of God" from extending their influence over an increasing number of this unreasoning mob? How can we decrease the extent of the system's influence and lessen the degree of its evils? Such I conceive to be our problem, and the facts which create it. In our search for a solution, we would want fidelity to our cause if we did not resort to a critical study of past and present efforts, their successes, and their failures, as a means of educating us for future work. * * * It was inevitable that I would acquire the beginnings of many novel hypotheses out of this Utah experience and that my activities would take some peculiar turns, thus allowing me to employ several unusual initiatives. On reflection, I think my study of the Mormon Church was one of the earliest initiatives that started me on what I regarded as my main work which was to show the sexual origin of all religions. But I made my feelings known in other areas as well. By 1895, I was advocating for the free and unlimited coinage of silver, gold, and platinum. In 1896, I also complained that the Utah Legislature was violating the law by paying a minister $4 each day for a few devout words at the opening of each session. While admitting to the questionable practice, the papers nonetheless defended it because their words had a pacifying effect on its belligerent 59 members and prevented daily fights, knockdowns, and the spilling of innocent blood. So let the prayers be prayed and the minister paid. 60 Chapter 3 New York City Years: 1901-1908 Widowed and now childless, and having made myself unpopular among the Mormons, I moved to New York in 1901 and joined the bar in December of that year. Augmented by the inheritance from my father’s estate, I lived at 18 East 10th Street in Greenwich Village before moving to 63 East 59th Street where I remained for almost a decade. Along with my move, I took with me the fame I had won as a lawyer in the Roberts congressional fight. As a consequence, clients filled my office from the first day I started the practice. Much of it involved wills, property purchases, suits, and other legal activities. As in Utah, it also involved time-consuming efforts collecting unpaid bills. While the money was good, it did not satisfy me. I concluded that the nation’s money culture was symptomatic of our inferiority/superiority complex. In other words, people turned to money to find some illusional compensation for their inferiority complex. Armed with these beliefs, I decided I had enough money for a wholesome living standard and that I could serve the public better by doing something other than making money. So, I abandoned active practice to engage in unpopular and unprofitable literary work. Before long, I was addressing a multitude of audiences and had a hundred fine compliments published about me and more than a few roasts. While my articles appeared in numerous liberal, technical, and radical magazines, not one of the journals with large circulations and generous payments to its authors would publish what I wrote. I satisfied my predicament by explaining that I had a small but fairly fixed income to keep me in modest comfort and so permitted me to do my work without any expectation of reward. This also meant that I never had to misrepresent my opinions to sell my writings. Being a lawyer, I know only a small part of the 40,000 regulatory laws concerning conduct in New York City. If in New York any adults think of themselves as not of the “criminal class,” I can only explain such delusions by their failure to coordinate all penal regulations with the whole of their conduct. I have committed thousands of punishable offenses without danger of punishment or social rewards. Hereby, I am not admitting that I am less anti-social than others. I believe that I have given up more of the conventional satisfactions than anyone I know of, to make this world a better place to live in. The few times when I came near arrest, I rendered the best social service I am capable of, by promoting intellectual hospitality. Judges and policemen are still too obsessed with their infantile fears to understand a man who could be so devoted to freedom of speech. Reed Smoot Even with my decision to leave Utah and move to New York, my interests remained focused on the Mormon Church; however, it became much more sex-related as I decided to approach the church from a psychological point of view. One of my early expressions of this point of view resulted in my article, “The Sex Determinant in Mormon Theology: A Study in the Erotogenesis of Religion” (1908) in Alienist and Neurologist. Later articles included “Incest in Mormonism” (1909) in the American Journal of Urology and Sexology; “Mormonism and Prostitution” (1909) in The Medical Council; and “Proxies in Mormon Polygamy” (1916) in The Forum. This perhaps explains my involvement in Utah politics one more time when the anti-Mormon elements in the state and elsewhere sought to oppose the seating of the Apostle Reed 61 Smoot in the U.S. Senate in 1904. Nationally, there were petitions as well, the strongest opposition coming from Colorado and Idaho. However, I surprised the anti-Mormon forces when I resisted their efforts and insisted that Smoot be given his seat. In his case, I found no issue concerning polygamy since I was assured that Smoot had only one wife. I was also given assurance that he had taken a leave of absence from his position in the Mormon Church to run for Senator on the Republican ticket. In addition, Smoot’s supporters included a significant number of non-Mormons from his hometown of Provo, arguing that he had always been a staunch Republican and among the forerunners in bringing his party to dominate politics in the state. After Smoot arrived in the nation’s capital, he learned that his seat would be contested. However, I don’t believe the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections took the charge seriously. The issue had become little more than a distraction. However, the case took a turn for the worse when an LDS Apostle spoke publicly of Smoot’s two wives, causing a warrant for his arrest. He was subsequently taken before the Senate committee because he violated the compact between Utah and the U.S. government by practicing polygamy. Based on this new information, I changed my position, arguing that it was not so much the polygamy that upset me, but rather the fact that by seating him, he owed his allegiance to a higher authority than that of his country. As an Apostle, Smoot’s oath to his church took precedence over his oath to the state should the interests of the two come into collision. This was not a matter of religion, but of citizenship; not of liberty, but of loyalty. I spoke at the Manhattan Liberal Club on January 23, 1904, and charged Smoot with deep-seated disloyalty consequent upon his recognition of a higher temporal allegiance. Although initially kept from taking his seat, President Theodore Roosevelt applied pressure on his naysayers in the Senate who agreed eventually to seat him. Smoot served until 1932 when he was defeated by Elbert Thomas, a supporter of the New Deal. Free Speech League Ever since I can remember, I held a broader view of the First Amendment than any of my colleagues, and certainly more than any contemporary judge. This, plus my travels across the country and becoming acquainted with immigrants, hobos, and all manner of nationalities, made it easy to take the side of the underdog in what were mostly one-sided persecutions. I think this explains why free speech fits so naturally with my libertarian views. Late in 1902, I joined with my friends Hutchins Hapgood19 and Lincoln Steffens20 to form the Liberal Club. That same year, we created the Free Speech League which was later incorporated 19 Charles Hutchins Hapgood (1869-1944) was a native of New York, earning degrees of A.B. and M.A. at Harvard University and completed courses for a Ph.D. but did not complete his dissertation. He held faculty appointments at Keystone College, Springfield College, Keene State College, and New England College lecturing on American history, anthropology, economics, and the history of science. He wrote articles for the general public for the Saturday Evening Post and Coronet magazines. He was also interested in parapsychology and worked with medium Elwood Babbitt. 20 Lincoln Steffens (1866-1936) was one of the so-called “muckrakers.” A graduate of the University of California at Berkeley in 1889, he studied with Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig and Jean-Martin Charcot in Paris. In 1901, he became managing editor of McClure’s Magazine, author of The Shame of the Cities (1904), The Struggle for Self-Government (1906), and Upbuilders (1909). He also cofounded The American Magazine in 1906 with Ida Tarbell. 62 in 1911 with journalist Leonard Dalton Abbott21 as president, Brand Whitlock,22 Lincoln Steffens, and Bolton Hall23 as vice presidents, and Dr. Edward Bond Foote24 as treasurer. I was listed as secretary and became the mainstay of the League’s activities. In its articles of incorporation, the purposes were set forth: The principal objects for which said corporation is formed are as follows, viz: By all lawful means to promote such judicial construction of the Constitution of the United States, and of the several states, and the statutes passed in conformity therewith, as will secure to every person the greatest liberty consistent with the equal liberty of all others, and especially to preclude the punishment of any mere psychological offense; and, to that end, by all lawful means to oppose every form of governmental censorship over any method of expression, communication or transmission of ideas, whether by use of previous inhibition or subsequent punishment; and to promote such legislative enactments and constitutional amendments, state and national, as will secure these ends. For over a century, it has been believed that we had abolished rule by divine right, and the accompanying infallibility of officialism, and that we have maintained inviolate the liberty of conscience, speech, and press. However, this belief of ours is fast becoming a matter of illusion. Though love for such liberty is still verbally avowed, yet in every conflict raising an issue over it, it is denied in practice. There is not a state in the Union today, in which the liberty of the press is not abridged. By gradual encroachments and unconscious piling of precedent upon precedent, we are rapidly approaching the stage in which we will enjoy any liberties only by permission, not as a matter of right. In this progressive denial of the freedom of conscience, speech, and press, all three branches of government have transgressed without seriously disturbing the serene, sweet, century-long slumber into which we are lulled by the songs of liberty whose echoes still resound in our ears, but whose meaning we have long since forgotten. 21 Leonard Dalton Abbott (1873-1953) was an anarchist and socialist who worked as a reporter for the British Labour Annual, and became a leading member of the Social Democratic Party of America. A leading activist for civil rights, he served as the president of the Free Speech League, the first American organization committed to free expression no matter the subject or viewpoint. 22 Brand Whitlock (1869-1934) was an American writer and politician who authored The Turn of the Balance (1907) opposing capital punishment and served as a reform mayor of Toledo, Ohio. He worked as a correspondent for the Chicago Herald before leaving journalism to work in public office and to study law. His works include the Thirteenth District: A Story of a Candidate (1902), The Happy Average (1904), Her Infinite Variety (1904), and The turn of the Balance (1907). His nonfiction includes Abraham Lincoln (1908), Forty Years of It (1914), and Belgium: A Personal Narrative. (1919). 23 Bolton Hall (1854-1938) was an American lawyer, author, and activist who took part in the back-to-the-land movement. A graduate of Princeton University and Columbia Law School, he was active in numerous progressive movements. Author of multiple books including Who Pays Your Taxes? (1892), The Iron Ore Trust (1899), Three Acres and Liberty (1907), What Tolstoy Taught (1911), and The Living Bible: The Whole Bible in Its Fewest Words (1928). 24 Dr. Edward Bond Foote (1854-1912), known to friends as “Dr. Ned,” was son of Dr. Edward Bliss Foote. Together, they came under the influence of the liberal Unitarian, Rev. O. B. Frothingham, and together turned from Unitarianism to Agnosticism. A graduate of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, he and his father founded and edited Dr. Foote’s Health Monthly which promoted Malthusianism, cremation, prison reform, suffrage, woman’s property rights, and suggestive therapeutics. 63 My ideas regarding personal sovereignty in social, religious, and sexual areas stood in bold relief against the power of church and state. Notwithstanding the Comstock Act passed by Congress in 1873, and amended in 1876, which considered “obscene” all manner of freethought, anarchist publications, and sexually explicit information about contraception subject to prosecution, I almost always sided with those in defense of free speech. On the other hand, from his position as a special agent for the Post Office, Anthony Comstock,25 or “St. Anthony” as I preferred to call him, played the part of the not-so-velvet glove that set out to suppress the selling of obscene pictures, contraceptives, and drugs or appliances intended to induce abortion. Until he called for stricter laws on censorship, Congress had not attempted to impose restrictions on the use of the mail until after the Civil War. The actual bill had been referred to the Committee on Post Offices and Post Roads but no official report was ever prepared. Comstock appeared before the Committee and that was enough. The members unanimously consented and the bill went on to the Senate calendar. There was no roll call in either the House or Senate. It was rushed through by unanimous consent and by the suspension of the rules just in time to be the last bill of the session and was signed by President Grant. By 1874, Comstock had used the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice26 (incorporated in 1873) to confiscate anything that met his definition of immorality. As secretary of the New York Free Speech League, I supported the right of private judgment and free expression for all viewpoints. As I wrote Hutchins Hapgood in 1913, “I can see that if one person is oppressed because of his opinions, everybody might be. I might be.” The League, which included anarchists, agnostics, atheists, birth controllers, and advocates for free love, was formed to combat the dangers of “Comstockism.” The chair of its executive committee, Edwin Walker, insisted that the League was not a New York entity alone, but was national in scope. Of course, being a lawyer and the League’s secretary, I found myself connected to a broad sector of progressive thinkers in politics, academe, and all types of middle- and working-class radicals. Being secretary to this organization, I sat in what they call the “cat-bird seat” which placed me at a great advantage in playing a major role in the League’s activities. By contrast, the League’s executive committee were all professionals whose donations 25 Anthony Comstock (1844-1915) was a United States Postal Inspector (i.e., a special agent who served without pay until 1906) who used his position to crusade against what he defined as obscenity in the written word and in other forms of expression, i.e. birth control devices such as pessaries, pills, powders, condoms, etc. His moralistic censorship became known as “Comstockery.” He founded the New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. 26 The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice was a vigilante organization committed to policing the trade in and suppression of “obscene literature and illustrations, advertisements, and articles of indecent and immoral use, as it is or may be forbidden by the laws of the State of New York or of the United States.” Figure 7: Schroeder between 1900-1909 64 were warmly accepted but who otherwise lacked the time to involve themselves in its day-to-day activities. That was my role. During my work with the League, my most important collaborator was Gilbert E. Roe, a former classmate in law school who had moved from Wisconsin to New York City in 1899. Given Roe’s friendship with Robert M. La Follette,27 whose political career had led him to the governorship of Wisconsin and later to the U.S. Senate, it can be said that I hobnobbed with some of the leaders of American progressivism. I also became friends with the “muckraking journalist” and author of The Shame of the Cities, Lincoln Steffens, who publicized the League’s commitment to unlimited freedom of expression. Others included Edward Bond Foote, founder of the Manhattan Liberal Club; journalist, author, and anarchist Hutchins Hapgood; labor union leader Samuel Gompers; Russian-born anarchist Emma Goldman; free speech advocate Ida C. Craddock; lawyer Clarence Darrow; Louis F. Post, the editor of the Chicago progressive journal The Public; writer and political activist Max Eastman; civil liberties litigator Harry Weinberger, attorney, poet, and biographer Edgar Lee Masters, and birth control activist Margaret Sanger. The League was my only concession to an organized affiliation, and when Roger Baldwin’s Civil Liberties Bureau, later renamed the American Civil Liberties Union, became adequately endowed, I felt free to dissolve the League since I knew that Roger could to the same work more efficiently. I let the League die without any regrets. To be truthful, it consisted of too few members and never really had a life of its own. Its agenda was typically my agenda, nothing else. When Baldwin formed his Bureau, he did not ask me to join, and although we corresponded from time to time, we kept our distance. Human Liberty I spent about half of a long life in unpaid efforts to promote human liberty. I have since concluded that it was largely a wasted effort. I also had the misfortune to have been educated by ignorant college professors. Like all educated persons, I was instructed in what to think, rather than how to think according to mature mental processes. Most of what they told me resulted in misspent years of patient toil and research in the futile effort to promote human liberty. Now I know better. I accept the fact that progress is slow. I am disillusioned but not discouraged. We must all keep on the job, even though evolution is a very slow process. We must endeavor to accelerate the evolution toward larger liberty in proportion to our intelligence and persistence, each doing our best to expose the insanity and infantilism among our political and moral leaders. Such liberty as the human race has achieved is not the product of reason or observation. On the contrary, what liberty has been conceded to us poor mortals has only come when the conflict between the competitors for tyrannous mastery becomes so equally balanced that it forces a choice between mutual extermination or compromise. Such compromises made under the compulsion of fear have been the only practical promotors of liberty. Theories about liberty are mere rationalizations of wishful phantasies and impotent glorifications of what little has been achieved. When the Lateran Council decreed Transubstantiation to be dogma, the Pope promised to extirpate 27 Robert M. LaFollette (1855-1925) served in both chambers of Congress and as Governor of Wisconsin. He championed progressive reform measures, i.e., regulation of railroads, direct election of Senators, and worker protection. An isolationist, he opposed entry of the U.S. in World War I and ran for president of the Progressive Party in 1924. 65 heretics out of his dominions and therefore gave the Church’s princes and kings executive power to destroy heresy when discovered. This was the conundrum that existed between the liberty of the Church and the liberty of non-Catholics. The liberty of the Church consisted of the right to impose upon non-Catholics its infallible will. For the Catholic Church, toleration signified an unacceptable forbearance in the presence of an evil that it was committed to destroy. Liberation from artificial fears, deluding hopes, and their destructive hate, demands a new kind of education. Service for larger toleration invites us to contend for freedom where it is most needed, least demanded, and most feared. It is in the seeming service of objects that we disapprove for the apparent benefit of persons whom we dislike, and against others who can sincerely use persecution to promote some “higher” liberty. It invites us to defend tolerance for all despised minorities in opposition to the “guardians of public welfare,” and against those who claim “divine sanctions” for their intolerance. It invites us to accept the enmity of tyrants whose goodwill we prefer; distrust those whom we seek to help; and scorn “practical” liberals who demand miraculous results. For such, the overthrow of tyranny degenerates into revenge or becomes an end in itself, instead of a means to psycho-social maturing. We must resist all temptations, which in the name of liberty would retard liberation, or merely establish new tyrants for old ones. To do all that without applause, surrender, discouragement, or complaint; and without self-pity or self-glorification, requires emotional stability and intellectual maturity. When this is accompanied by a greater self-understanding, then we may enjoy a mature and realistic mutuality of understanding, without which the larger tolerance will never become permanent. I see now that it is only psychological ignorance that makes me think that such reasoning about liberty has anything to do with the effect, or could, in the present state of our civilization, bring about a substantial enlargement of liberty. At present, our leaders lack the intelligence to lead through understanding. They are blind leaders responding to instinctive feelings only. Given our present mode of politics, education, and especially the dominance of religious symbols, we suffer much more from the tyranny of our morbidly self-righteous and childishly self-centered masters. I fear that humanity as a whole has not yet attained sufficient maturity in its intellectual methods to bring about any fundamental change by educational means. The substantial enlargement of our freedom will come only when the victims of our present system are driven desperately to seek bitter revenge. It seems to me that it is in this direction that our institutions are unconsciously driving toward. My sense of liberty is grounded not in formal logic and legislative enactments but in the psychological necessities of human nature. I see issues like the profit motive and other economic wrongs as symptomatic of psychological imperatives. My concept of liberty is not a concept in the common acceptance of the word’s meaning. For me, liberty takes meaning only as a progression of behavior based upon psychological liberation from immature states which is an evolving condition in human nature. Liberty is not a license or permission. It is the result of growing freedom from certain immature psychological complexes brought about on a larger scale through the democratization of a new kind of education. My philosophy is not logical in the strict sense of the work; nor is it the kind of logic that becomes fixed and stereotyped, falling into the same category as academic logic. I do not seek to set standards of right and wrong behavior, but merely to cure immature antisocial tendencies. Only then can we approach the unattainable goal of complete universal voluntary cooperation. By such a philosophy we may grow toward perfection but never reach it. 66 Tolerance depends on a cheerful acceleration of liberty which cannot be attained under our present educational system. That is because our system is dominated by a superstitious reverence for precedents whose urge is unconsciously pushing toward an emotional fixation of desires and mental processes at existing infantile or childish levels. Our political masters can, by their initiative, acquire greater liberty, but only when they have attained a more mature intellectual method that includes an eagerness for and a reliance on the dominance of reason and facts as applied to all of life. Such a love of facts is something very different from “kidding” the other fellow into letting us have our way. Only with this state of mind will we be zealous in attempting to understand others and, in turn, be understood. Then, also, most of us will be quite certain that all our predispositions (prejudices) must be treated with suspicion and subjected to the conscious check and corrections by a wider knowledge of the facts before being made the basis for forcibly or legally imposing our will upon others. The dominance of the sadistic reformer or megalomaniac authoritarian must not be overthrown by a different but equally morbid reformer. Instead, humanity must outgrow the sadomasochist conflict and the master-slave conflict through which all morality becomes effective through force. I can see all this as a problem of wholesome psychological maturing rather than as a matter of the mere verbal acceptance of the libertarian theory. For that reason, I now consider most of my past efforts as misdirected. Vanishing Liberty of the Press A century ago we thought that we had settled all these problems of liberty. In all our constitutions we placed a verbal guarantee of liberty of speech and press, and then stupidly went to sleep, assuming that the Constitution had some mysterious and adequate potency for self-enforcement. This is the usual mistake, always so fatal to all liberties, and the multitude is too superficial and too much engrossed with a low order of selfish pursuits to discover that constitutions need the support of public opinion which demands that every doubtful construction shall be resolved against the state and in favor of individual liberty. In the absence of such construction, constitutions soon become the chains that enslave, rather than the safeguards of liberty. It comes under the guise of “judicial construction” that all constitutions be judicially amended until those who, by a dependence upon their constitution, endeavor to defend themselves in the exercise of proper liberty. However, persons finding satisfaction or profit in repudiating constitutional guarantees, and combining therewith sufficient political power to ignore them with impunity, unconsciously develop in themselves a contempt for the fundamental equalities which most founders of republics seek to maintain. This contempt is soon shared by those who find themselves the helpless victims of misplaced confidence in their constitutions until that which they should consider the sacred guarantee of their liberties becomes a joke, and those who rely upon it are looked upon as near to imbecility. The great mass is indifferent to the constitutionally guaranteed liberties of others, and so allows sordid self-interest and bigotry to add one limitation after another until all freedom is destroyed by judicial amendments to their charters of liberty. Furthermore, to most people, the word liberty is only an empty sound, the meaning of which they do not know because they never learned the reasons underlying it. 67 That the state is a separate entity is a mere fiction of the law, which is useful within the very narrow limit of the necessities which called it into existence. This is judicially recognized by our courts and by thoughtful laymen. By getting behind the fiction, to view the naked fact, we discover that the state has no existence except as a few fallible office-holders, theoretically representing the public sentiment, expressing its power, and sometimes doing good by thriving on the ignorance and indifference of the masses. When we abolished the infallibility of rulers by divine right, we at the same time abolished the political duty of believing either in God or what was theretofore supposed to be his political creation, the State. Government is to be viewed as a human expedient to accomplish purely secular ends and transformed or abolished at the will and discretion of those by whose will and discretion it was created and maintained. The exclusively secular ends of government are to protect each other equally in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. So the fathers of our country in their Declaration of Independence wrote that: “Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the property to alter or abolish it.” In harmony with this declaration, we made laws that political offenders, though they had been in open revolt against a tyrannous foreign government, or had slain the minions of the tyrant, might here find a safe retreat from extradition. All this has passed away. Formerly it was our truthful boast that we were the freest people on earth. Today it is our silent shame that among all the tyrannical governments on the face of the earth, ours is probably the only one which makes the right of admission depend upon the abstract political opinions of the applicant. Instead of being “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” we exclude from our shores those who are brave and seek freedom here, and punish men for expressing unpopular opinions if they already live here. In fain do the afflicted ones appeal to a “liberty-loving” populace for help in maintaining liberty. The average “intelligent” American seems unable to see that human nature is quite the same in America as it is in Russia, and that by allowing our police and post office authorities to lawlessly suppress the freedom of speech and the press, we are thoughtlessly giving the greatest possible provocation toward the establishment of a reign of terror in America. If the present official lawlessness continues at the present rate, to increase its arbitrary and brutal abolition of the freedom of speech and the press, in less than twenty-five years the United States of America will present a reign of terror infinitely worse than that which now exists in Russia. Among ignorant people, and some who have the reputation of not being so ignorant, there seems to have occurred a considerable doubt as to the meaning of our Constitutional guarantees of unabridged “Freedom of Speech and the Press.” Ignorant men are naturally timorous when they come in contact with things they do not understand, or the public expressions of ideas which, because of their unconventional trend, stimulate fearful emotions. When they seek to explain their absurd and unreasoned apprehensions, and the consequent desire to express the expression of an unpopular idea, they always fall back on the imaginary demands of an alleged public welfare. The most barbarous edicts of the most outrageous tyrants usually speak to the abject wretches who are about to be sacrificed, a kind paternal word of assurance that their persecutors are only promoting the public welfare. This question-begging talk about public welfare requiring the suppression of any idea, no matter what is misleading because such statements rarely, if ever, express the real motive for suppressing or punishing public discussion, and seldom is anything 68 other than a symptom of stupid sentimentalism, or the mere pretext or sham excuse for the tyrannous violation of constitutionally guaranteed rights. There is not the slightest reason why “freedom” concerning speech and press should be differently interpreted. The only explanation for having interpreted it differently is that people generally, and petty officials in particular, believe in unabridged freedom to breathe, but emotionally disbelieve in unabridged freedom of speech and therefore, they lawlessly read into the Constitution meanings and exceptions that are not represented there by a single syllable or word, simply because they think, or rather feel, that the Constitution ought not to guarantee freedom of speech and the press, for those ideas which intensely displease them. Censorship After I moved to New York, the publicity on account of my prosecution of the case against Hon. Brigham H. Roberts served as a favorable introduction to several Protestant organizations that had taken an interest in Roberts’ exclusion. Because of this, I received frequent invitations to lecture on Mormonism. One of these lectures was before the Women’s Christian Temperance Union whose leader was Emily Martin. At the time, she was also President of the National Council of Women for Christianity and Patriotic Service, and if I remember rightly, she was also head of the Committee for the Promotion of Purity and a member of the Presbyterian Women’s Board of Home Missions. After consulting with her, it was agreed that I should talk about the relationship of sex to Mormon theology. The ladies were delighted with the lecture and Emily Martin thought it surely should be published for the world to know what really bad people Mormons were. I told her I had the material all written up and ready for publication, and submitted it to her. Later she told me that she had shared the essay with her husband, John Martin, a rich Pennsylvania coal mine owner, who was a member of the Board of Directors of Anthony Comstock’s New York Society for the Suppression of Vice. Emily reported to me that her husband had pronounced the essay very interesting but he wished to have Comstock’s advice on its obscenity. It seems that just being a member of the Board of Directors did not imply that Martin knew obscenity when he saw it. As a consequence of his “ignorance,” he took the essay to “Saint Anthony” who reported that the information contained in the essay surely ought to be made known to the few incorruptible people such as members of Congress, the clergy, and perhaps even doctors. However, he considered it positively obscene if made available to the general circulation. Frightened by this advice, Emily declined to print it. The essay was subsequently published several times in other journals under the title “Sex Determinants in Mormon Theology.” As a footnote to John Martin’s moral sense, some years later he was arrested while surrounded by a bevy of naked chorus girls. Of course, as a member of Comstock’s board of directors, he could do nothing obscene. Hence, he was treated at a sanitarium instead of spending time in prison. When I was living in Salt Lake City, some wanted me indicted for sending obscene literature through the mail. As noted earlier, the grand jury, like all juries in Salt Lake County, was composed of both Mormons and Non-Morons and while the Mormons favored indicting me, the non-Mormons were not. Because of this, a sufficient number of votes could not be secured for my indictment. This state of affairs on the uncertainty of obscenity was duplicated in New York State where Newton L. A. Eastman was prosecuted in 1907 for publishing and circulating obscene 69 matter titled “The Open Door to Hell,” a diatribe against the morality of the Catholic confessional. His indictment was based on section 317 of the Penal Code which addressed indecent exposures, obscene exhibitions, books and prints, and bawdy and other disorderly houses. Eastman’s “open door” applied to the confessional box which the author referred to as: . . . . the cesspool, the recipient, the reservoir of lust, of vile thought and communication, adultery, the birthplace of sexual criminality, with men’s wives and young girls, and the convent is earth’s terminus and hell, the lake of fire is the dumping-ground. It is the criminal college. The mother of prostitution. The author of pauperism. . . . Here the priest asks the vilest of questions, and of course, the husband is not present. He asks the most delicate and intimate questions. . . . The Roman Church teaches you cannot be saved unless you confess to a priest. Although convicted in the lesser courts, the conviction was subsequently reversed in the Court of Appeals whose Protestant judges were unanimous in holding that the article was not obscene. Not surprisingly, the court’s single Catholic judge filed a dissenting opinion. Thus, in both cases, it appeared to me that whether a thing was obscene or not, depended upon the religious prejudices of judges and jurors, again proving that there were no objective criteria for defining obscenity. These laws against the carrying of “obscene” literature through the mail were intended to save our Republic from destruction just as the burning of those guilty of blasphemy was to protect those governments founded on divine right. The post office censorship over “obscenity” and sex literature was enacted on false representations and enforced on the corresponding illusions that obscenity was an objective force for evil. The effect of such puritanism was to create in all young people an unnecessary and undesirable intensification of sexual curiosity together with an intensified lure and fear of sex. Thus do our moralists promote the very evil that they profess to abhor. They also multiply and intensify the “split personalities” who are the bane of our civilization—the greatest single factor in promoting juvenile delinquency, marital misfits, political unrest, industrial strife, crimes, riots, revolutions, wars, and overcrowded mental hospitals. In our postal laws is a statute penalizing the transmission of mail of obscene, indecent, or filthy literature, art, etc. No standard of judgment by which to determine guilt is furnished in the statute, and, as with the Chinese code, anything is “improper conduct” that the arbitrary will of the magistrate chooses to include. So with us, everything is “indecent” or “filthy” which through whim, caprice, malice, or sex superstition may tempt the judge to a vengeful ire, or which the Postmaster-general may elect to exclude from the mail. That particular phase of despotic power is so old, and the average “intelligent” American slave has become so accustomed to it, that the very arbitrariness of this power is accepted as part of our conception of “liberty.” The Case of Benjamin Hicklin The first reported English decision which attempted to state a test for obscenity was decided in 1868 and furnished the precedent for practically all American decisions. The facts 70 were as follows: A pamphlet titled, The Confessional Unmasked: Shewing the Depravity of the Romanish Priesthood, the Iniquity of the Confessional, and the Questions Put to Females in Confession, consisted of extracts from Catholic theologians. One page of the pamphlet gave the exact original Latin quotations and the adjoining page furnished a correct translation thereof. Much of the pamphlet admittedly was not at all obscene. It was not sold for gain, nor with any intention to deprave morality, but as the defendant Henry Scott believed, to improve morality. Scott was a member of the "Protestant Electoral Union," formed "to protest against those teachings and practices which are un-English, immoral, and blasphemous, to maintain the Protestantism of the Bible and the liberty of England . . . To promote the return to Parliament of men who will assist them in these objects and particularly will expose and defeat the deep-laid machinations of the Jesuits and resist grants of money for Romish purposes." Brought before two justices of the borough, one of whom was Benjamin Hicklin, a licensed solicitor and borough magistrate, the pamphlets were seized and ordered to be destroyed. Scott appealed the order but the opinion of the Court of the Queen’s Bench in Regina v. Hicklin, held the pamphlet to be obscene and laid down the so-called Hicklin’s Test: "Whether the tendency of the matter charged as obscenity is to deprave and corrupt those whose minds are open to such immoral influences, and into whose hands a publication of this sort may fall." It will be observed that it was criminal, if in the hands of any person who it might be speculatively believed to be injurious, no matter how much it tended to improve the morals of all the rest of mankind, nor how lofty were the motives of those accused, nor how true was that which they wrote. This is still the test of obscenity under our laws, and it has worked some results that could hardly have been in contemplation by our legislators in passing our laws against indecent literature. This prosecution, although not designated blasphemy, was yet more nearly allied to than is apparent on a superficial view. The main purpose of the book was to discredit the largest and most influential section of Christian priests. In Germany, where practically no attention is given to “obscenity," a novel entitled The Sinful Bishop, written by a Catholic priest and which "in no sense offends morals," was suppressed. In New York City, though no attention is given to ordinary plays, yet, when "Mrs. Warren's Profession" presented a plot wherein a priest in his boyhood had fathered an illegitimate child, that, in the opinion of Police Commissioner Bingham, made it "obscene." Mark you, it was a priest who tended to discredit clergymen and the church. No play in which non-clericals are guilty of illicit love ever excited the police commissioner. In California, a book substantially like that in the Hicklin case was also suppressed. Prudery in the Medical Profession In order properly to understand the growth of this newly legalized prudery and its intrusion into the realms of medical science, we must appreciate to the full the influence of past centuries of dominant ascetic ideals as evidenced by the manifestations of prudery even in the medical profession. When we realize how much of it is to be found even there, we will better appreciate the greater quantity to be found in the less educated and more sentimental masses. Of course, the mere study of medicine, in and of itself, does not necessarily relieve the physician of his superstitions, either professional, moral, or religious. Because of this, we find within the medical profession quite as much sentimental opposition to unpopular allegations of truth and approval of persecution for professional or other heresy as are found elsewhere. At the meeting of the American Medical Association held at Columbus, Ohio, in 1899, a paper was read on "The 71 Gynecologic Consideration of the Sexual Act," by Denslow Lewis, M. D., Professor of Gynecology in the Chicago Polyclinic; President of the Attending Staff of the Cook County Hospital, Chicago; President of the Chicago Medical Examiners' Association; Vice President of the Illinois State Medical Society; Ex-President of the Physicians' Club, of Chicago; and Late Special Commissioner from the Illinois State Board of Health and the Health Department of Chicago for the investigation of Municipal Sanitation in European Cities. Later Dr. Lewis was Chairman of the section on Hygiene and Sanitary Science for the American Medical Association. I mention these titles to show that Dr. Lewis was a man of prominence in his profession. When the before-named paper was discussed, however, Dr. Howard Kelly of Baltimore, who assumed the role of chief advocate for mystery and ignorance, said: "I do not believe in the current teaching of the day, that is, talking freely about these things to children. . . . Its discussion [before this association] is attended with more or less filth, and we besmirch ourselves by discussing it in public." Later the article was denied publication in the Journal of the American Medical Association where papers read at the national meeting usually appeared. The editor of the Journal, in a letter to Dr. Lewis refusing to publish the paper, wrote: "There is nothing in it [the paper] that is not true and possibly it ought to appear in the Journal, but with my personal views about this class of literature, I hardly think so." Another member of the publication committee justified his conduct in voting against the publication of Dr. Lewis' essay, writing: "The publication of the article will lay the Board of Trustees open to the charge of sending 'obscene' matter through the mails." At the Association’s next meeting held at Atlantic City, Dr. Lewis requested to have the full membership overrule the decision of the publication committee. So that members might have an enlightened judgment as to the character of the paper whose publication they were to pass upon, Dr. Lewis had his address printed in pamphlet form and distributed among the members. After all sorts of interference with the distribution of the pamphlet, the matter finally came before the general session. Dr. Howard Kelly stated that he had remained over a day longer than he intended so he might take part in the controversy to make sure that the pages of the Journal were not "polluted" by the publication of the essay in question. After a vociferous meeting, the committee’s decision was sustained in its refusal to publish. Later, Dr. Lewis was forced to resign his position as professor of Gynecology in the Chicago Polyclinic, and Dr. Fernand Henrotin, who forced this result, asserted that Dr. Lewis’ action at the Atlantic City meeting had excited unfavorable comments. In 1901, at the St. Paul meeting of the American Medical Association, Dr. Lewis presented a paper before the section on Hygiene on the subject, "The Limitation of Venereal Diseases." Although such conspicuous prudes as Dr. Kelly consented to discuss the paper, it too, was refused publication in the official organ of the Association. It was also about this time that the American Public Health Association considered the subject of gonorrhea too loathsome to be tolerated for discussion. I have it upon the authority of one of the most widely known scientists of America, that many medical journals hold substantially the same attitude toward the discussion of sexual topics. No wonder, then, that reformers deplore physicians' ignorance of sexual science and the consequent unprevented, but preventable, social ills. With such superstition and prudery even in the medical profession, it is not strange that the populace should protest but little over such matters. . The Evolution Toward Medical Books 72 Besides its prudes, the medical profession has its regular quota of "moral" snobs. As a result, many physicians, and nearly all hospitals, refuse to treat venereal diseases. As a necessary consequence of this silly sentimentalism, those who are willing to treat such cases are quite generally ostracized and called disagreeable names. Naturally, they adjust themselves by seeking greater financial returns for their efforts to compensate them for the odium they invite. So through the prudery of some, we develop out of others the “lost manhood" specialist. Judged by any code of rational ethics, the advertising of venereal specialists is considered legitimate. Of course, it is not to be expected that "professional ethics" is rational, and to emphasize the fact that it has nothing to do with ethical science, it assumes a distinctive qualifying name (i.e., "Christian Science") which bears no necessary relation to any real science. So it comes that physicians indiscriminately call all advertising doctors bad names, and are willing to invoke any bad law to punish a "bad" man. From such motives, the obscenity laws have been frequently invoked against the man who unconventionally advertises his profession, and “regular" physicians have applauded the effort because they lacked the foresight to see that the very precedents they were helping to establish would later be used to against them. Quite a few physicians have been arrested and convicted for sending through the mail information about venereal diseases. One of these books which serves as a model, has been thus described by a former assistant attorney-general of the Post Office Department. He said the book consisted mainly of a description of the causes and effects of venereal diseases, and secondly, their symptoms. Still, it was held to be criminally "obscene." Easy was the transition from this outlawing of the warfare against the venereal peril to the suppression of popular medical books, which, though a little more "legitimate," also cut down the "regular" practitioners' earnings. The judicial legislation, creating criteria of guilt in one class of cases, was soon found applicable to the other. Clark’s Marriage Guide. In Massachusetts, a man by the name of Jones was arrested for sending through the mail Cark's Marriage Guide. It must already be apparent that under the laws in question, no one can tell in advance what is or is not criminal, because no one can predetermine what the opinion of a judge or jury will be upon the speculative problem of the book's psychological tendency upon some hypothetical reader suffering from sexual hyper-aestheticism. Unfortunately, Mr. Jones went for advice from a lawyer who must have been a good deal of a prude, and who therefore advised his client to plead guilty, which he did. Later, when Judge Lowell was called upon to impose the sentence, he is reported as having said that the book "is not immoral or indecent at all," and imposed only a very light fine. In Chicago, however, the same book was suppressed by heavy fines aggregating to over $5,000. History of Prostitution Dr. William Wallace Sanger's28 History of Prostitution is one of the best, if not the most learned disquisition in the English language, which deals with that important problem. It was first 28 William Wallace Sanger (1819-1872) was a New York physician who graduated from the New York College of Physicians and surgeons in 1846. Appointed assistant at Bellevue Hospital and then as the first resident physician at 73 published in 1858, and in numerous editions has been on the market ever since. I am advised that it has been publicly endorsed even by an extremely puritanical postal inspector and widely advertised and sold through the "purity" journals. No one ever dreamed that it was an obscene book until November 15th, 1907, when R. M. Webster, Acting Assistant Attorney General for the Post Office Department, wrote an opinion based on an advertisement of the book. Webster wrote: "On page 50 is advertised a book entitled “'The History of Prostitution,” which from its very name is indecent and unfit for circulation through the mail.” He had not read the book, but simply decided that the subject could not be discussed through the mail, and his arbitrary will and not statutory criteria determined the issue. Yet, some continue to assert that ours is a government by law. The people may make laws on the subject of prostitution, but cannot get enlightenment upon it, because their servant, a Government employee, says they cannot be entrusted with knowledge. To think that society was subject to such censorship in this day and age seemed incredible at best, but quite tragic on its merits. I did not discuss the question of whether the Post Office had the authority to deal with the contents of mail matters by way of criminal punishment. Had I done so, I probably would have contended that the interference of the federal government was a total and unfounded usurpation of power. The National Purity Conference Starting in 1905, I began a dedicated effort to study the suppression of obscene literature and proceeded to challenge Comstock’s moralistic declarations. As much as I attempted to meet with him and discuss our differences, he avoided it. Believing that prudery was a manifestation of excessive sensuality, I determined that modesty led to prudery and gave rise to erotophobia which inevitability led to the attempt to suppress sex through censorship. Like witchcraft, I believe that obscenity exists in the mind of the believer. In 1907, I set forth my arguments against obscenity in the Albany Law Journal pointing out that such laws were void because they violated the First Amendment and violated as well the “due process clause” and the injunction against uncertain laws. Essentially, I tried to nullify the anti-obscenity laws by insisting that they violated constitutional protections. In 1908, some friends of mine had secured me an invitation to address the National Purity Federation in Chicago. This included all the organized super-good people that could be collected together in one hall. Some of them were authors, others were publishers of purity books such as sex books disseminating Christian fiction about sex. Somebody had complained that they were not pure enough, so I was invited to enlighten them about the laws of obscenity. It had been arranged beforehand that I would be debating Comstock but he chose not to appear. While there, I met the Lutheran pastor and supposed sex educator Reverend Sylvanus Stall, D.D., author and publisher of numerous books on what people of all ages ought to know about sex. They included What a Young Boy Ought to Know (1897), What a Young Man Ought to Know (1897), What a Young Husband Ought to Know (1897), and What a Man of Forty-five Ought to Know (1901). His books were widely advertised but conferred little information except for the horrors that awaited the young man or woman who masturbated. As for women going through menopause, he equated the degree of their difficulties to God’s punishment for their sins in youth. Blackwell’s Island, he oversaw police interviews of over two thousand women there. The results of his work at Blackwell’s Island he wrote History of Prostitution. 74 He also published The Social Peril (1905) warning about the menace of syphilis and using it as a scarecrow to induce people to live continent lives. Applying this as a basis for his career, he organized the American Society of Sanitary and Moral Prophylaxis which carried in its membership a list of very distinguished persons. But there was a problem. It seems that Stall had plagiarized a large amount of material from a book written by the venereologist, social hygienist, and campaigner for sex education, Dr. Prince Morrow, who felt rightfully outraged by the plagiarism. Not wishing to go to the extreme of a lawsuit to gain an injunction, he went to Comstock and asked him to suppress the Rev. Stall’s book. “St. Anthony” concluded that the material in the book was obscene and informed the Rev. Stall that he must quit publishing the book or stand trial for obscenity. Reluctantly, Stall suppressed the book but later came to me seeking advice about having Comstock arrested. It seems that “Brother Anthony” had once invited the Rev. Stall to his office and had shown him his choice collection of obscene pictures which were acquired over many years of confiscations. For endangering his morals, Stall wished to have him arrested. He was very insistent about this even though Comstock had furnished a certificate of purity for his earlier books. I had several conferences with Stall about the matter. On one of these occasions, we decided to get lunch at one of Childs’ restaurants in New York. At the time, these restaurants were inexpensive cafeterias where people of modest means could purchase a meal. The floor was covered with sawdust and long tables extended from the wall where people sat and partook of their meals. Never forgetting the importance of dramatizing his Christianity, the good Rev. Stall got down on his knees in the main aisle at the end of the long table uttered a prayer to God, and then invoked his blessing on the meal which we expected to order soon. Of course, I had to explain to him that I did not believe in the objective reality of obscenity in any book, picture, or play, and therefore could give him no real assistance in the matter of putting Mr. Comstock in jail. I further told him that I did not believe that his fellow Puritans in New York would dare try to help him accomplish his end. From this experience, I learned how “pure” people think. The whole social atmosphere at the time was very different from that which developed during and after the First World War. Then, the purest of people, many of whom were caught up in Spiritualism, claimed not to tolerate any sexual intercourse at all, not even in marriage, if perchance, somehow one got into that state. Having gotten married, many believed in a form of continence with limited liability. In other words, they would countenance sexual relations only for procreation; that is, one indulgence for every child. Still others thought that God approved sexual intercourse during the so-called “safe period”’ between menstrual periods. Having provided such an opportunity, so they argued, God must have intended it for limited indulgences. Others whom I knew believed in the type of purity that the American preacher and Bible Communist Father John Humphrey Noyes of Oneida, New York, called “male continence,” a form of self-control during sexual intercourse, otherwise known as coitus reservatus, in which the male attempted not to ejaculate in his partner. These “good and pure people” accepted this technique as a form of birth control but were visibly shaken by the compulsory sexual promiscuity that Father Noyes imposed on the members of his Oneida Community. Comstock did not always succeed in his endeavors. In January 1888, he had seven art dealers arraigned before Judge Francis Biddle on the charge of selling “lewd obscene and indecent pictures.” When their trial failed to produce a conviction, Assistant District Attorney Ker 75 disappointed Comstock by declining to prosecute further. As he remarked: “It cannot be the wish of the state to destroy art. I believe in the Bible and God, and I know he made nothing imperfect. He made man after his image and by the fall of man alone came indecency. However, I cannot reconcile my mind that the pictures before me are obscene, lewd, or indecent. They are the highest state of art and any man who says they are obscene ought to go to a less civilized community than Philadelphia.” Nevertheless, society was not yet ready to accept an open discussion of human sexuality. In 1908, I sent a manuscript on the sexuality of the Mormons to Paul Carus, editor of The Open Court magazine. Carus returned the manuscript to me, indicating that while he was not opposed to having the subject treated, he did not consider it appropriate “to harp too much on the subject,” believing that it was not wise to let the imagination dwell too long or repeatedly on a subject which had better be left alone less the ideas cause too great an excitement. As Carus explained, This is the main reason why I shun any unnecessary discussion of the subject, and our periodicals are not devoted to reform in this line. The point you make in your essay on Mormonism is in full agreement with my principle, and I would say that the whole Mormon community must be in a hyper-sensitive state concerning the sexual question. The many facts which you collect are the best evidence that you are right. The facts which you have so carefully collected ought to be known and published where they would do good, but the Open Court is not the place for it. In 1911, I published a 439-page Obscene Literature and Constitutional Law. Although I put it forth as a book, in reality, it was a collection of pamphlets addressing various aspects of obscenity that I had published over the years. Filled with an arsenal of arguments, illustrations, satire, and at times even eloquence, I tried to give a clear picture, albeit sometimes repetitious, of the subject. The book was not so representative of me as a lawyer but as an agitator. That was because I aimed the book at a general audience rather than at the legal profession. I had three objectives: First, that censorship aided ignorance; second, that obscenity was not objectively real but reflected a subjective state of mind that varied widely; and third, that obscenity statutes were unconstitutional in that they violated the letter and spirit of the First Amendment. No previous volume had ever been published of such length and with such scope. It represented a broadside across Comstock’s bow. It was also a publication that brought me recognition at home and abroad, making me the undeniable libertarian authority on the legal aspects of obscenity. Still, reviews of the book appeared in only a few of the scholarly journals of the day, a further indication that their editors preferred to keep me at arm’s length. Only the minor journals, particularly those that were more radical, gave me space. Otherwise, the book was viewed as lacking in judicial temperament and dignity. Nevertheless, I detected some movement by a few reviewers who, despite their criticism, were willing to accept the fact that society’s ignorance of sexual information had resulted from violations of constitutional guarantees and unnecessary censorship by postal authorities and the police which then tended to fill our asylums with all manner of innocent people. What most reviewers didn’t understand was the fact that I had to publish the book with my funds as no publisher would touch it. That, too, is a sad commentary on the oppressiveness of our laws. For most, my plea for unlimited liberty proved to be the tipping 76 point among those who otherwise agreed with me, causing it to be damned with such descriptions as “sophomoric,” “unsound,” “intemperate,” and “highly colored.” Few were capable of accepting my claim for absolute libertarianism. What I demonstrated clearly in the book is that the censorship exercised by the postal authorities, police, and societies founded to suppress vice was stupid and unintelligent. In October 1906, I wrote the Postal Commission requesting that it hear arguments for an amendment of, or the repeal of, the laws making it a crime to send through the mail obscene and indecent literature. In its response, the Commission’s secretary, Henry H. Glassie, informed me that the Commission “would regard it as an unwarranted stretch of authority to deal with the question of the revision or repeal of the law regarding obscene and indecent literature.” As it reported only to Congress, the question of obscenity or indecency of mail matter was one wholly independent of the work of the Commission whose subject was only the classification of mail matter. Through the years, I corresponded with several attorneys and law firms regarding the constitutionality of postal laws. The worst features of the Postal Commission’s rules and regulations were not based upon any law but were instead built upon notions of different officials who, from time to time, held seats of authority. As Wilmer Atkinson of the Farm Journal reported in 1909, Here we have the spy system in all its enormity that the Public Press has been subject to for the past decade. The secret agents of the Post Office Department are called inspectors, and have been used to pry into the affairs of publishers in the most aggravating manner; they have seized papers and records to obtain evidence for the publishers’ undoing; they have taken subscription lists outright, and have, in the furtherance of the “investigation” written letters to subscribers on the abstracted lists for information to be used against the owners of the lists, and otherwise have persecuted publishers under suspicion of their having committed some branch of the postal laws; and publishers have been loath to make outcry against the outrage committed, lest the worst possible results ensue. . . . If Anglo-Saxon civilization stands for anything it is a government of law and not of spies. . . . . It is now the boast of the Post Office Department that it has during the past year excluded from the mail 18,000,000 pounds of second-class matter; and it is shown by the official records that, during the past seven years, more than 25,000 newspapers and periodicals published for the dissemination of information of a public character; or devoted to literature, art, science, or some special industry, have been stifled at birth, or given their death-blow after having been established. It was not until the financial implications of a competitive free press were fully comprehended that the provisions of the postal laws regarding second-class mail became a battleground for litigation. Nevertheless, efforts to codify, revise, and amend the laws prepared by the Postal Commission remained a fruitless struggle. In 1938, the National Committee for the Revision of the “Comstock” Law was still at work seeking the revision of the law and the abolition of the Post Office’s censorship power. In March of 1944, Esquire magazine squared off against the Post Office challenging the role of the 77 postmaster general as the national arbiter of taste by using the threat of second-class mailing rights to bully publishers. While the law firm of Cravath, Swaine, and Moore referenced my Free Press Anthology and other writings in its brief before the District Court, they declined my offer to help. Ultimately, when New Dealer Thurman Arnold wrote the opinion reversing the lower court’s dismissal of Esquire’s complaint, he declared that second-class privileges were not “an award for resisting the temptation to publish material which offends persons of refinement.” Arnold’s ruling was reaffirmed when postal authorities appealed his decision to the United States Supreme Court and Justice William O. Douglas, speaking for all eight sitting justices, declared such power abhorrent to American freedoms. Congress admittedly has no authority to regulate the sexual conduct of citizens within the states. Much less has it the power, as a means to that end, to control the mere psycho-sexual conditions of citizens of the states. It has never been claimed nor even imagined or dreamed, that the postal regulation against "obscene" literature is of the remotest consequence as a means to the maintenance of post roads, or that such regulation is of even the remotest conceivable use to the postal system as such. On the contrary, both judicially and otherwise, it has been stated, again and again, that the only purpose of that regulation is to control the psycho-sexual states of postal patrons, as a means of restraining their sexual activities. But this is an end the accomplishment of which is not entrusted to the Congress of the United States. Confessedly then, we have here a case where Congress, under the pretext of executing its powers to establish post offices and post roads, has passed a law for the accomplishment of objects not entrusted to the United States government, and this is exactly what Chief Justice Marshall said could not become the law of the land. It can make no possible difference to the postal system as such whatever may be the psychological effect of the opinions transmitted. Some physical factors of the postal system must be affected, making the postal system different from what it otherwise would be, or else the regulation is not an exercise otherwise would be, or else the regulation is not an exercise of the power to establish and maintain it. Neither can the exercise of the present power be justified as an incident to the power to regulate interstate commerce because the censorship is not limited thereto. It includes intrastate transmission as well as that of private letters, or gifts which are not at all matters of commerce either interstate or otherwise. For these reasons, the power here under discussion is not vested in Congress at all, and the present laws creating postal censorship over mail matters are unconstitutional. Free Speech for Radicals I reached my conclusions regarding free speech in harmony with Jefferson, but not with our courts. Of course, the judicial dogmatists never use the free speech clause of the federal Constitution, nor even refer to such data and arguments as I used. I was perhaps expecting too much of mere judges that they possess so enlightened a mind as would incline them to achieve a relatively impersonal intellectual interest in free speech. For their political, material, and emotional interest, they found it easier and more efficient to ignore such data and arguments as I presented, rather than to state them fairly and then point out their errors. Most judges viewed me as a suspicious character who boldly defended more intellectual freedom than most libertarians consider “safe and sane.” That is because I look to the time when no one would be prevented from receiving even the most odious of opinions, about the most obnoxious of subjects, expressed most offensively, by the most despised person. 78 In every free speech fight I know, the relatively prosperous portion of the populace, in alliance with the courts, gave us the same brutal and lawless interpretation of law and order as supplied by the businessmen and their class-dominated courts and legal machinery operating under public authority and with public pay. Until our judges and other “leaders of thought” outgrow their infantile intellectual methods and earnestly strive to acquire a sympathetic understanding of the victims of our social system, nothing will change. Nevertheless, I trust it is not wholly delusional to hope that someday even judges and educated citizens will live up to the high standard of patient endurance. Thousands of controversial discussions have shown me the childish intellectual methods of our “leaders.” I will state them in four categories. In the first method, the disputants use the same words to symbolize irreconcilable ideas. In the second method, the disputants use different words to symbolize the same mental content. In a third method of discourse, the disputants think that they are talking about knowable, objective realities, but they express themselves in words that usually symbolize only feelings and fantasies about the objectives. A fourth kind of intellectual “dust storm” is created when the disputants use mostly words that symbolize nothing in the objective realm that is knowable within the common limitations of our human intellects. These words are supposed to symbolize supernatural (unknowable) realities. All persons in any of these classes do most of their thinking about social problems through and for their feelings and fantasy life—by wishful and fearful thinking. In discussing social problems their words seldom have any uniform, generally accepted, and generally understood objective meaning, even when they seem to be thinking about knowable things. Ignorance and psychological immaturity prevent them from discovering that their only disagreement is over the meaning of words. So they never debate the relative accuracy of their concepts. Over time, the sacred guarantees of our liberties have become a joke and those who rely on them are looked upon as near to imbecility. As General Matthew Mark Trumbull in The Open Court magazine once remarked: “The Constitution has hardly any existence in this country except as rhetoric . . . . by its sublime promise to establish justice, we have seen injustice done for nearly a hundred years. It answers very well for Fourth-of-July purposes, but as a charter of liberty, it has very little force.” All this is true because the masses are indifferent to the constitutionally guaranteed liberties of others, and so allow sordid self-interest and bigotry to add one limitation after another until all freedom is destroyed by judicial amendments to our Charter of Liberty. Furthermore, to most people, the word liberty is only an empty sound, the meaning of which they know little because they have never learned the reasons underlying it. Thus, they are too stupid to be able to differentiate between their disapproval of an opinion and their opponent’s right to disagree with them. They love their power to suppress intellectual differences more than another’s liberty to express them. Formerly it was our truthful boast that we were the freest people on earth. Today, it has become our silent shame. Instead of being “the land of the free and the home of the brave,” we exclude from our shores those who are brave and seek freedom here, and punish men for expressing unpopular opinions if they already live here. Under our immigration laws no anarchist, that is, "no person who disbelieves in or who is opposed to all organized governments" is allowed to enter the United States even though such a person is a nonresistant Quaker. In other words, the persons who believe with the signers of the Declaration of Independence that those who create and maintain governments have a right to 79 abolish them, and who also desire to persuade the majority of their fellow men to exercise this privilege, are denied admission to our national domain. Today, those who would probably be excluded from immigrating to the United States would include Count Leo Tolstoy, Michel Montaigne, Thomas Paine, Henry David Thoreau, William Lloyd Garrison, Fredrick Nietzsche, Thomas Carlyle, Walt Whitman, Elbert Hubbard, Henrik Ibsen, and probably even Ralph Waldo Emerson, Thomas Jefferson, Herbert Spencer, and John Stuart Mill. These are the types of men who hold an ideal of liberty but would today be liable to a fine or imprisonment. Enlightened judges must declare such laws unconstitutional but such judges are as scarce as the seekers who are willing to make a test case out of martyrdom. Hence we all submit to this tyranny. If, on the other hand, we truly believe in the liberty of conscience, speech, and press, we must place ourselves again squarely believing in the declaration of rights made by our forefathers and defend the right of others to disagree with us even about the beneficence of government. All persons love the words “unabridged freedom of speech and the press” so long as these words protect them and like-minded persons in expressing anything that they wish to express in whatever way they wish to express it. Very few persons believe in unabridged freedom of speech, or of the press when it gives equal protection and liberty to those who hold contrary opinions or those that are emotionally offensive. This is identical to everything that the official church, the ruling aristocracy, or the kings who claimed to rule by divine right, felt to be an opinion of dangerous tendencies. Such tyrants could not wait to demand censorship. The censors always acted as if upon the unformulated illusion that words that expressed ideas that were disagreeable to them emitted a real objective force for evil, which utterances must therefore be suppressed or punished. Such ideas were always considered to be a clear and present danger to the beneficiaries of legalized wrongs and the vested interests of established tyrants, or their supporters. When such undesirable opinions were discovered, action against them was routinely employed. The First and Fourteenth Amendments to our federal Constitution guarantee unabridged freedom of speech and the press to every person within the geographical boundaries over which the government is supreme. Within that same area, every legislator and every executive official and judge has taken an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States. Notwithstanding all that, we now have what is probably a greater variety of opinions than any country on this earth and during any time in recorded history. Between a professed devotion to unabridged intellectual liberty and the general practice of suppressing unpopular ideas are the psychological imperatives of our dominant leaders who seem to be exhibiting the symptoms of “split personalities.” Unabridged freedom of speech implies the right to choose the language, the vocabulary, and the time for expressing one’s claims of truth. That also implies the right to remain silent if the time and the occasion do not seem propitious. I agree with the Continental Congress that intellectual liberty is necessary “whereby oppressive officials are shamed and intimidated into more honorable and just modes of conducting affairs.” I agree with Thomas Jefferson, who summarized all the pre-revolutionary contenders for free speech. He said: “It is time enough for the rightful purpose of civil government for the officials to interfere when principles break out into overt acts against peace and good order.” Under our Bill of Rights, no expression of any opinion can be lawfully prohibited or punished on the pretense that it holds or emits any objective force that can create a realistic “clear and present danger.” If no legislative body has the authority to prohibit or punish any opinion as such, then it follows that no governmental agency can have any 80 authority to make any inquiry as to the existence of any opinion, upon the pretense that such information is necessary so that appropriate legislation may be passed for its suppression. So far as I know, no writer on this subject nor any court has ever made even an attempt to formulate a comprehensive definition of the intellectual liberty guaranteed by the First Amendment to our federal Constitution. A century and a half after its adoption, my efforts may be regarded as the first halting attempt toward such a general definition. It is based upon two factors that I believe have never been considered by our courts. The first of these factors is the consideration of the historical issues over the limits of intellectual liberty. This controversy raged for many centuries before our Revolution. It was that controversy which our Revolution and the First Amendment to our Constitution decided against the English crown. The second novel factor was that of a unified view of all paternal liberties. This latter viewpoint precluded the consideration of intellectual liberty as something apart from other liberties; or that it could be viewed as functioning in a legalistic vacuum. Intellectual liberty cannot be defined without the consideration and coordination of all personal liberties that are guaranteed by our Constitution and its amendments. That being said, to me, intellectual liberty under our Bill of Rights means a state-protected claim of the right to express any opinion on any subject without any previous restraint or subsequent punishment and expressed to any adult who is willing to listen or read and is not lawfully incarcerated in a mental hospital or jail, and so long as it is only the expression of an opinion that is concerned and no actual and material injury is proven to have been contemplated or resulted as a necessary and intended part of the effect of any such opinion. Unfortunately, the editorial guardians who control public opinion by controlling the intellectual food supply of the readers of all publications with any circulation worth mentioning have seen to it that their readers never learn of the existence of critical ideas as those which I hold and express. The United States Government and scores of reference libraries have likewise refused to accept my libertarian books even as a gift for fear that someone might discover the existence of such wholly undesirable ideas about the meaning of freedom as I am in the habit of expressing. Yes, I have been denounced and ridiculed by those whom I tried to help because my vocabulary and intellectual methods are unlike their own and because I have sought to give equal liberty and tolerance to their opponents. Many radicals, liberals, and conservatives believe that I am an enemy of society. And yet, I do not despair. I know that the processes of psycho-social evolution are slow, very slow. Any magic of mine will be as futile as the magical legislation of our reformers. This old world of ours seems to be an interplanetary mental hospital for the accommodation of all of the victims of mental disorders. Like the inmates of this interplanetary retreat, I have my delusions of grandeur. I believe that I am pointing out the way by which some great psychotherapists of the future will proceed and begin the educational discipline from which greater mental health and greater maturity will come. It is because of my willingness to ask these unpopular questions that impelled some to describe me as “a cold enthusiast,” an appellation I considered unfair. To be sure, I seldom rush to judgment. That said, I do not believe that I spend my time poking sticks into dead horses. Emma Goldman 81 While living in New York, I gave many lectures in defense of unabridged free speech. In this way, I had gotten acquainted with the Russian political activist Emma Goldman, known as the “Queen of Anarchists.” Born in Lithuania, she emigrated to the United States in 1885 and became attracted to anarchism soon after the Haymarket Affair in Chicago. It seems that she and her anarchist lover, Alexander Berkman, planned the assassination of financier Henry Clay Frick, chairman of Carnegie Brothers and Company (i.e., Carnegie Steel Company) during the Homestead Strike in Pittsburgh in 1892. Only later did I learn that Berkman had been born in Russia and immigrated to the United States in 1888. Outraged by Frick’s attitude toward the workers, Berkman managed to enter Frick’s office in downtown Pittsburgh on July 23, 1892, and fired twice at nearly point-blank range, penetrating his neck and back. Although wounded, Frick tackled him, and with the help of other employees, managed to subdue him. Convicted, Berkman was given a maximum sentence of 20 years. Among Berkman’s fellow convicts, however, were several influential politicians who had friends in high places working to get them pardons. They accomplished this by getting a law passed under which they could be released without serving their full time and without having to appeal to the discretion of the Pardon Board. The statute was written in such general terms that Berkman managed to get free without having to serve his full term. Goldman was first arrested in December 1894 for a speech she made to a gathering of workingmen. Convicted of inciting a riot, though no riot occurred, she was sent to jail for six months. According to the publications at the time, I concluded that the offensive portion of her speech consisted only in this: She quoted from an article by Cardinal Edward Manning, published in the Fortnightly Review, wherein he said: “Necessity knows no law, and a starving man has a natural right to his neighbor’s bread.” She supplemented this with her own words as follows: “Ask for work; if they do not give you work, ask for bread; if they do not give you work or bread, then take bread.” I doubt if any sane man believes that another’s law-created property right in bread is more sacred than his natural right to live. Does anyone believe that the duty to suicide by starvation in the presence of a stealable plenty is stronger than the duty of self-preservation by theft when that is the only alternative? I believe Cardinal Manning and Miss Goldman told self-evident truths, which were no injury to anyone because none acted upon her suggestion, and yet, she went to jail for six months which I deem an outrage.29 This was the only time she was ever convicted of any offense against laws invading freedom of speech. Nevertheless, she was arrested nearly forty times and detained from one hour to several months at a time even though these arrests did not result in a judicial hearing. Some of these arrests were for speeches made, while most were for merely threatening to make a speech, and sometimes when neither of these facts existed. She received an undeserved reputation in which the public hysteria justified these lawless invasions of her liberty. One day she came to my apartment and asked me to put up a thousand-dollar bond for an anarchist who had been arrested along with herself and several others the previous evening protesting police interference with freedom of speech. She explained to me that she had put up bail bonds for some but had many others in need of bonds which she hoped her friends would supply. Accordingly, she asked me to provide a bond for a young woman named Becky Adelson. I asked her what assurances there were that Miss Adelson would not jump her bail bond. She told me that 29 “The Lawless Suppression of Free Speech in New York,” Republished from The Arena, June, 1908. 82 her only assurance lay in the fact that Adelson was a sweatshop worker who supported her mother who was elderly and sickly and didn’t even have enough money to purchase a ticket on the ferry. I asked Miss Goldman to come back in the afternoon, and if I could get the cash for her, I would do so. She insisted that she could not come back as she would be busy trying to find others to help with her co-defendants. Instead, she told me that Alexander Berkman would call for it and assured me that he would make himself known in such a way that I would not doubt his identity. I secured the money, and in the afternoon, Berkman called for it and I handed this stranger, an ex-convict who had only recently been released from a Pennsylvania prison, one thousand dollars in cash to be deposited with the proper official for the release of Becky Adelson. I am sure that never before in his life had he seen so much money in one pile. There was nothing in the world to keep him from putting the money in his pocket and heading for San Francisco or China. I should say also that I had never before seen Becky Adelson. Some weeks later a poorly dressed young woman came to my apartment and handed me a check for one thousand dollars in return for the money that I had deposited for her release. She introduced herself as Becky Adelson. I had taken a reckless chance on the recommendation of Emma Goldman, and her friends who were unknown to me had made good. The case against Becky Adelson and the rest was dismissed. On another occasion, Goldman came to me to explain her troubles. I think it was during the administration of Tammany Hall Mayor William Jay Gaynor. It seems the police commissioner insisted on having her arrested every time she tried to make a speech. Because of my having lectured about free speech, she came to me for advice and help. At that time, I was president of the Brooklyn Philosophical Association and we conducted an open forum every Sunday afternoon in the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn. I suggested to her that I would like to try an experiment by inviting her to our forum to see what would happen. She told me that it was extremely risky not only for her but for everyone else at the meeting. When she agreed, I advertised the meeting at which she was to speak in the usual way and we had more people come than the hall could hold. I had a stenographer on the platform and another in the audience whose duty was to record everything that was said. I first made the usual announcement of the subjects to be discussed in the future at our forum. Then after a long pause, I said with “tongue in cheek” that the police commissioner had been very kind to Miss Goldman. At every meeting that season, he had sent policemen to guard her against violence from the audience and had regularly made protective arrests of her and those associated with her at the various meetings. I noticed several policemen in the audience, including some who appeared to be in plain clothes. I assured all of them that this was a perfectly law-abiding audience. I then promised them that Miss Goldman would do no harm and therefore all of them could safely go to sleep and I would wake them when we were through so they could go back to their precinct headquarters. After a long pause and a very serious expression on my face, I said: “I don’t believe that there will be any arrests here today—Miss Goldman!” She quickly came to the platform and gave her speech. This was followed by the usual discussion and no arrests were made. That was the only speech she made in New York that winter without being arrested. Relying upon the precedent that was thus established, she mistakenly believed that she was now safe from arrest. Some of her friends announced a meeting for the following Sunday but she was arrested again. Goldman founded the monthly journal Mother Earth in March 1906. A magazine of literature and social science, it gave readers a showcase of radical and anarchist writings on current 83 events as well as poetry and fiction. Berkman, acting as a typesetter, took over as temporary editor in 1907 when Goldman was imprisoned. The magazine, with a subscription list of nearly 8,000, supported the labor movement, women’s emancipation, sexual freedom, and birth control. Among its contributors were Mabel Dodge Luhan, Floyd Dell, Will Durant, Maxim Gorky, Eugene O’Neill, Margaret Sanger, Leo Tolstoy, and myself. The magazine also opposed the country’s entry into the First World War and remained in print until 1917 when the U.S. Government used its Espionage Act to close it and revoke Goldman’s citizenship. In 1917, Goldman and Berkman were arrested as part of the so-called Palmer Raids after Attorney General Mitch Palmer for trying to prevent men from registering for the draft and were subsequently deported to the Soviet Union. Years later, when I returned to Madison, Wisconsin, for a reunion of the Class of 1885, I made a presentation to my classmates on my accomplishments (see Introduction) and also gave a lecture on Mormonism. Quite a few of my fellow students were still alive and I enjoyed the renewal of many pleasant acquaintances and reminiscing which we did. I heard one story, however, that had entirely escaped my memory. It came, not from a fellow student, but from a young man who opened a drugstore and soda fountain near the University. He was not much older than me, and I remembered him very well in connection with the drugstore. He told this story about me. It seems that when I was a student there, the anarchist John Joseph “Hans” Most30 was arrested in New York City and convicted for having expressed some dangerous opinions. At the time, John Most was the spokesman and intellectual leader of the Anarchists of America, a position which later fell to Emma Goldman. He told me that I had expressed my indignation that anyone should be arrested for expressing an opinion and that I had gone among the students to take up a collection with which to pay for his travel to Madison to deliver a lecture on what it was all about. This was before his trial and before his conviction. The McNamara Brothers In 1915, I published Martyrs or Criminals? An Unmoral Analysis of a Celebrated Case. In it, I discussed the McNamara brothers, James and John, who dynamited the Los Angeles Times Building in October 1910, injuring 21 and killing one. Clarence Darrow defended the brothers while Lincoln Steffens provided some of the much-needed financial support. The brothers ultimately confessed to the crime and were sent to San Quentin penitentiary. My involvement took place six years after the brothers dynamited the building, and four years into their sentence in San Quentin Penitentiary. I became involved by questioning whether their actions were those of thoughtless and heartless exploiters or an intelligent and moralistic response to industrial exploitation and crimes against humanity. The McNamara brothers felt they had never committed any crime but regarded themselves as soldiers with radical sympathies whose actions were prompted by conditions of exploitation and injustice that demanded a remedy. However, those who characterized their actions as criminals possessed strong aversions that tended to preclude them from even trying to understand the forces that made the McNamara brothers what they became. 30 Johann Joseph “Hans” Most (1846-1906) WAS A German-American Social Democrat and anarchist politician who saw in the works of Marx and Ferdinan Lasalle the blueprint of the future. He advocated for a collective form of anarchism, and inspired by Emma Goldman and Alexander Berkman, he nonetheless became disillusioned when Berkman attempted the assassination of Henry Clay Frick. 84 I found it important to listen while the McNamaras told their story—explained what they thought had impelled them to act as they did. And then you must not be angered or even impatient if it shall appear that their suffering had made them bitter and that they exhibited intensity of feeling by the harshness of language. If your desire to understand is stronger than your vanity of respectable superiority, you must be calm under the most vigorous denunciation of things as they are and of those for whom they seem to exist in unfair abundance. Listen to discover as much as possible of your unconscious contribution to the state of things that makes such relatively intelligent workers as the McNamaras desperate and that creates violent revolutions when enough of the workers come to feel as the McNamaras felt. In effect, I was little interested in the crime itself. Instead, I chose not to categorize it since way too much passion had already been exercised in the press to blind people to understanding why the brothers did what they did. Which is to say that guilt is relative. What made them criminals was what society chose to do. I was willing to ask whether society was to blame. When a law is violated by a class, or in the interest of a class, with some aspects of which we even unconsciously crave to be identified, then the letter of the law can be quite ignored without producing any great moral upheaval. The reason is we now have a sympathetic understanding and desire that impels us to find extenuating or excusing circumstances. It would speak well for our understanding if we could find them in all cases. My desire has always been to avoid expressing our more intense feelings in terms of moral praise or blame because such judgments are always void of understanding. Thus I hoped to promote a more adequate and just understanding of the McNamara brothers. When you characterize the McNamaras as “martyrs” or “criminals,” you are not describing either their conduct or the behavior of the forces that under their particular circumstances created the psychological imperative of which dynamiting was the inevitable manifestation. In other words, these epithets furnish no enlightenment upon the subject which is being investigated. I think that by these epithets we are only characterizing the feeling that their conduct has stimulated in us. In so far as these epithets intensify a like feeling in others, so far do they preclude a calm consideration, or clearer understanding, of the many social factors and forces that contributed toward the final, unfortunate, indictable result. In other words, all the feelings that these epithets tend to arouse are but a means for preventing you and me from inquiring into our share in producing or maintaining the conditions of which these dynamiting affairs are inevitable consequences. Leave all moral judgments as to the McNamaras to those infantile minds that have not yet outgrown the child’s impulse to pose as a Daniel. But listen—listen to discover as much as possible of your unconscious contribution to the state of things that makes such relatively intelligent workers as the McNamaras desperate and that creates violent revolutions when enough of the workers come to feel as the McNamaras felt. When we see our contribution to the final tragedy, then and then only do we have sufficient understanding to entitle us to pass moral judgments—on ourselves of course. If we have even approximated the state of development that I have tried to portray and promote, we never would think of passing a moral judgment upon anyone but ourselves. So long as you are unwilling or unable to do all this, you cannot claim to be superior to, and probably not even the equal of, the McNamaras. So long as you cannot act according to this ideal which I have portrayed, you, too, are among those infantile ones who solve social problems through the methods inspired by prejudice and passions, that is, by the violence of the intellectually blind. That places one either into or below the evolutionary class to which the McNamaras belong. 85 I consider all social problems as fundamental problems of human nature. This requires a psycho-evolutionary approach. As applied to anti-social conduct, under my scheme of things, there should be no definite or punitive sentence passed on any convict. Instead, there should be an investigation into all possible personal causes for the anti-social attitude and conduct, and an effort undertaken to remove those causes. For punishment, we should attempt to substitute hospital treatment (both mental and physical) and education. We should never ask what shall we do to the convict, but what can we do for him? Can we feed him, cure him, and educate him to the point of eliminating anti-social trends? If not, then he will be incarcerated for life but under the supervision of intelligent and sympathetic custodians. If we can restore or build him into a pro-social human being, we will do so as quickly as possible, and then give him freedom. There should be no relationship between the gravity of the offense and the period of detention. Tabooed Aspects of Suffrage There is an army of pettifogging agitators who evade the unpopular aspects of problems; who deal with half-truths; who mislead by question-begging epithets; who are careless of truth itself, quite unconscious that they are intellectual frauds. That is why we have tabooed aspects of problems. It also explains why many act on motive, which their public “arguments” are designed to conceal. The problems of women and sex are generally so befogged with maudlin sentimentalism, with cowardice and hypocrisy masking as chivalry, that anyone writing on these subjects critically and with robust frankness must expect to be misunderstood and misrepresented. Some stupid ones will call me “woman-hater.” A few will see that I cannot hate women as a whole, nor merely as women. Very few will see that I am trying to help women and humanity by trying to liberalize all. Certainly, I know some women of fine feeling and big brains to whom the following strictures do not apply. These will understand and will not feel hurt even when they disagree with me. That will be the test of the reader. A very handsome and very successful literary woman recently stated to me her reasons for opposing women’s suffrage, substantially as follows: “Women’s Suffrage is the cult of the incompetent. Without suffrage, a clever woman can always get more than her share of special privileges and advantages. I get more than my share. Why should I help the suffrage cause?” To such persons, one can only answer that if women’s suffrage is the cult of the incompetent, then such anti-suffrage sentiments express the cult of the unjust. It is to be hoped that a time will come when women and men are willing to renounce all advantage, whether gained by cunning or by law because all advantage is parasitic. It is to be hoped that someday all will develop so fine a sense of justice as not to desire special privileges and to be ashamed to gloat over their possession. But we must not be too certain that adherence to the cause of the suffragists necessarily implies the existence of a more refined sense of justice, nor does it imply a willingness to renounce unjust advantage. The pioneer suffragists were earnest apostles of justice and liberty. Then the suffrage cause was too unpopular to be attractive as a mere fad for the bored victims of idle ease. Then, more than now, women suffered from unjust legal discriminations, and suffrage was insisted upon as a means to the end of securing them more justice, and probably was not yet thought of as an end in itself. These founders of the suffrage movement were essentially iconoclasts, who dared to question the 86 rules of “right” even though founded on alleged “divine revelation.” Modern suffragists, however, often ignore or even repudiate some of the women most conspicuous in bringing about this wholesome change, such women as Mary Wollstonecraft and Matilda Joslyn Gage. Under present laws, every woman whose expectations and vanity are damaged can find profit and sweet revenge in that legalized blackmail known as a suit for breach of promise to marry. There are women big enough to scorn such “balm” for wounded “affections;” others are afraid to expose their greedy “love affairs” to public scrutiny. Are suffrage conventions interested only in such “justice” and such “emancipation” as will induce women to desire “votes for women” more than justice for men? I presume that the present difficulty with the suffrage movement in America is that it suffers from the blight of respectability. In consequence of this, our suffragists too often hedge and trim and compromise and pettifog, and too often are willing to use every intellectual trickery as a justifiable means to their end. It seems quite likely that from now on the suffrage movement will more and more neglect its foundation demands for personal and material justice. Such demands will still be urged, but rather as a mask to conceal a lust for power; not that justice may be done, but that power for injustice be increased. For example, no suffrage organization would allow any of its officers publicly to urge the eminently just proposition, that in the matter of sex, women should be accorded the same freedom which is tacitly conceded to men. In States where women have suffrage, they have utterly failed to protest against either proposed or existing laws that make sex-discriminations on questions of personal liberty. Neither the slave ideal nor unjust female slave virtues can be eliminated by statutes. There are strong reasons for believing that the first effect of woman’s suffrage will be to retard the rate of legislative progress. For some time to come, women will average less intelligence than men concerning economic, political, and ethical problems, and consequently will be fooled into supporting “the system” more easily than men. Furthermore, women as a class being by education and an absence of self-reliance much more conservative than men, can more easily be counted upon to support any “stand pat” proposition of the powers that be. More effectually than men, women are influenced by a superstitious reverence for “respectability.” The woman who dares to be an iconoclast is still too rare a person to be accepted as typical of her sex or to receive much countenance from present American suffragist organizations. The motive underlying the demand for suffrage in some quarters will readily be apparent when we remember that the largest single organization of American women to demand suffrage is the Women’s Christian Temperance Union. The bulk of its members neither know nor care to know about either economics or politics, in the broader sense. They despise liberty, probably because they usually feel incompetent to assume the responsibility that liberty imposes. Conscious of their incapacity of self-government, they put their trust in God, the preacher, or the politician. The great bulk of its membership is moved by the most intense moral sentimentalism, the chief aim of which is to inflict their stupid ideals upon a suffering public, using ever-increasing and progressively irksome maternal legislation. So far as this class of women and this organization are concerned, I believe they demand suffrage, not to enlarge liberty and thereby perfect humanity, but to destroy liberty and to perpetuate indefinitely the seeming necessity for tyranny and slavery. The argument that women should vote because they pay a property tax is regularly used by certain suffragists. Manifestly the argument proves too much since lunatics and infants also pay a property tax. The property qualification for voting logically results in multiple voting according to 87 the quantity of property possessed. Do suffragists believe in that? If they are ready to give legal sanction to our little aristocracy of dollars, they should openly proclaim such a purpose. The strongest argument against women’s suffrage is that made by some of its advocates, namely, that women will moralize the state. By this is meant that she will vote for the suppression of all that harmless and self-regarding conduct that offends the “ethical” superstitions of white neck-tied ladylike men or other nonentities, miscalled “good” women. If I believed this to be a permanent consequence of women’s suffrage, I would certainly be tempted to oppose it. I feel assured, however, that this will not be a permanent result. I am not for suffrage because it will immediately promote human liberty. I am convinced its immediate effect will be the contrary. Yet I am for suffrage because it seems to me that such experience is the only way to cure men and women of their savage instinct to do moralization through legalized violence. I am not for suffrage from any conviction that women have a present capacity for improving the brand of “justice” handed out by the state. Probably, the lack of experience with the problems of social, economic, and political justice has left a woman’s sense of justice even more primitive and crude than that of the average man. I am for suffrage because I believe that exercise with our complex problems of rights will help both men and women to a more refined sense of justice so that ultimately all will attack social problems by the use of their heads, rather than by stupid acquiescence, perverse sympathies or diseased nerves, and will find harmonious adjustment through a growing social consciousness. I am not for suffrage because I believe women are more moral than men. On the contrary, I believe they are less intelligent than men about ethical problems. I am for suffrage because the conflicts of political life may rationalize the stupid moral sentimentalism of men and women. Someday many will know the rare love between men and women of real culture who, through a wide and growing field of consciousness of social relations, extend the intimately personal relation to larger groups, ultimately approximating a conscious kinship to all humanity. Among such men and women, there will be neither self-effacement on the one side, nor acceptance of sacrifice upon the other; no love which ignores justice, but one which is the refinement of justice; no passionless love, but one whose every passion is always subject to the check and justification of the cold logic machine; no love which is but a blind, shrinking, fearful, half-concealed sentimentalism, but one in which socially conscious beings realize themselves in deliberate, intelligently proportioned, self-assertion. Such cultured lovers of the future will scorn to supplement their refined attraction by vulgar, pious mummery or legalized coercion for compulsory cohabitation, and will look upon our laws for regulating separate maintenance and divorce as the most interesting relics of a gruesome, barbarous past. With them, the natural tie that binds will be stronger than statutes, customs, and rules; more seductive than suits for breach of promise; more generous than alimony decrees; more lasting and sane than the “spiritual affinity” of diseased nerves; more refined than mere lusts of the flesh, or those for gold; and more humanizing than the lingering, dwarfed soul-shrinking conception of home and household duties. Suffrage may destroy the old home of master and slave, of patron and parasite, but in its stead, it will contribute to the new and finer home of more free and more cultured equals; a center of harmonious and humanizing endeavor for the development of a nobler society. That is why I am for women’s suffrage. 88 Nancy Eleanor Sankey-Jones In 1907, I met Nancy Eleanor Sankey, the daughter of hymn writer Ira David Sankey who later became evangelist Dwight Moody’s partner. At the time, she was president and treasurer of the Good Luck Publishing Company with which I had some dealings. She had become friends with birth control advocate Margaret Sanger and was also an admirer of the Massachusetts suffragist and abolitionist Lucy Stone. When her father died, she added her mother’s maiden name to her own, making it Nancy Eleanor Sankey-Jones. She insisted on being called Miss Sankey-Jones. At age forty-six, she began living with me but we chose not to marry. As Mabel Dodge Luhan31 observed in her autobiography, Nancy Sankey-Jones . . . lived openly with [Schroeder] for the sake of proving that love may be free. It hurt her and she was conscious of her reckless situation, for she had been born and brought up among quite decent people. She was not young, either. But she went through with it like a young martyr. She often gave one little blue sheet of sweetly printed love poems that were somehow of the suffering-hearted kind. Despite Luhan’s observation, I did not detect any reluctance in Nancy’s decision to live with me in an unmarried state. Besides, in the discussion of morals, the words “free” and “love” when used conjointly conveyed to me no definite significance or anything necessarily implying social harm. I concluded that the emotional associations accompanying this epithet were a species of moral hysteria that ought to be ignored, if not eliminated. I found no one with either the stupidity or the courage to say that love could only be called into existence or prolonged by statute law or other coercive measures. From this viewpoint, it was hard for me to understand why the term should have become so forceful an epithet of reproach. To my mind, coerced monogamy represents legalized rape. The many who, like Nancy and I, lived in freedom under the guidance of our intelligence, remained unknown since we neither sought the company of the vulgar nor furnished headlines for scandal-mongers. I believe that when two persons come together and respond adequately to each other’s needs, no force can drive them apart. They will be held in a natural tie through many more bonds of sympathy than at present are possible, and more lasting than all the brutal coercions of our social customs and statutory laws. In keeping with these beliefs, I participated in a Divorce Symposium attended by the Swedenborgian Louis F. Post, Emma Goldman, and Upton Sinclair. I explained that those unions of highly refined beings who made free voluntary choices were far better than the hypocritical pretensions of monogamy, the phallic ceremonials of Christians for whom “purity” was a profession, and the authorized rapes in legalized marriages which were too shameful to contemplate. 31 Mabel Dodge Luhan (1879-1962) was a patron of the arts and columnist for the Hearst organization and whose weekly salon in Greenwich Village included such personalities as Emma Goldman, Margaret Sanger, Hutchins Hapgood, Max Eastman, John Reed, and Walter Lippmann. 89 Soon afterward, I wrote “The Impurity of Divorce Suppression” for The Arena in which I noted that many persons of pretentious respectability were agitating the public in their denunciation of divorce and divorcees. Many of these mistook the vehemence of declaration for the weight of logic, and rely more upon the vituperative denunciation of easy divorce as impure, than a rational discussion of the social utility of divorce suppression. Being possessed of but little worldly wisdom, these persons are mainly impelled to action by religious fanaticism. This appears from the fact that they support their position only by religious dogmas, never by arguments based upon practical observations of human life. Since persistence and vehemence in the denunciation of easy divorce are likely to increase the number of moral perverts, it becomes necessary to refresh our memory as to the genesis and consequences of the marriage ideals of these people with whom "purity" is a profession. If marriage may legitimately include business partnership, intellectual companionship, or general good fellowship and mutual helpfulness, why should not a failure to realize these be just as important in ensuring divorce as sex disappointment, especially when the rights of children can be properly protected, or when the union is childless? Why should the woman who finds herself married to a habitual drunkard or abusive brute, have inflicted upon her a life sentence, a choice between submitting to his foul embraces, or living in enforced loneliness? Only the blissful irresponsibility of ignorance or the cruel paternalism of fanatics could inflict such penalties. If anything in the natural sex relation is impure, surely a compulsory continuance of a loveless marriage must be the extreme of that impurity. This, when submitted to for mere support, is the very essence of prostitution, even though done with priestly sanction. That marriage law is best which allows the greatest liberty consistent with equal liberty, and which affords just protection to each individual directly concerned and the stage against pauper and degenerate offspring. Society in its collective capacity, cannot be harmed, and if all individuals are protected from harm, from injustice, the social order is perfectly preserved. So then, let us unite to defend the liberty of all to live natural and happy lives through easy divorce and the right to re-marriage. In 1908, partly for reasons of health and partly because we wanted greater privacy, Nancy and I moved out of New York and purchased a farmhouse in Cos Cob, just over the line in Connecticut. It was near the town of Greenwich in Fairfield County on the western side of the Mianus River. It is an artist’s colony and distinguished by the stature of such artists as John Henry Twachtman, Julian Alden Weir, Childe Hassam, Theodore Robinson, Henry Fitch Taylor, and Figure 8: Nancy E. Sankey-Jones 90 Robert Reid. Twachtman was among the first to live there, arriving in 1889 and making it home for his summer school of art students from New York. In our remodeled farmhouse surrounded by books, woods, and Italian and Polish neighbors, we lived on the income of a bricklayer. We belonged to a progressive group of reformers who were devoted to exposing society’s inconsistencies, faults, and outright idiosyncrasies. Among the ‘muckrakers’ we occasionally consorted with were Lincoln Steffens, Mabel Dodge Luhan, Hutchins Hapgood, Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, Alexander Berkman, Bill Haywood, Edwin Arlington Robinson, Walter Lippmann, Max Eastman, and John Reed. Although most were regulars at Mabel’s salon, Nancy and I preferred to be left alone. To be honest, I was never much of a social animal. Besides, we considered ourselves anarchists using the written word to convey our beliefs. I placed myself with the likes of H. L. Mencken and Robert Ingersoll more so than anyone else. Perhaps that is because I always had a great disdain for the moralism of the so-called “progressives.’ I was more interested in giving the individual the full freedom of thought he was owed than in the psychological maturity to enjoy it. Although Nancy preferred to remain in the background, she was a devoted partner, serving as a typist, proofreader, and hostess. Our “Rippowam Wigam” gave me ample opportunity to write. We still had friends like Bernard MacFadden, Bolton Hall, Josiah Strong, and Benjamin O. Flower, former editor of the Arena in Boston. My friendship with Flower was close, with both exchanging lengthy correspondence over the years. In 1906, Flower added my name to the magazine’s list of associate editors. “We want to make The Arena the great organ of liberal and truly democratic leaders of the day a magazine that will meet the wants of all those who are broad enough and intellectually hospitable enough to welcome the thoughts and opinions of others,” wrote Flower, “though they are opposed to their own. You measure up to these requirements fully, and more, for you are . . . probably one of the most sleepless sentinels on the outposts of progress.” On occasion, we sometimes had guests who, having failed in life, suffered so intensely that their sanity was threatened. For years I offered psychoanalysis without charge for poor fools like these. I did it to learn and hoped it would help me to be of greater service in my writing. I wanted to educate our educators. Thus, my intelligence guided my selection of those whom I helped. To be frank, I am neither a conservative nor progressive. I disdain emotionalism. And while I have worked with socialists, I never considered myself one of their ranks. Neither do I consider myself a libertine. Instead, I consider myself an impartial relativist, an honest amoralist, and an advocate for a fully democratized and psychologically mature society free of the taxing moralism of the predominant culture. Sometimes I got carried away with myself and wrote multiple versions of praise for things that I had written weeks, months, and even years earlier. I probably did this because others chose not to. I’m not particularly proud of that fact since it suggests that I simply wished to fortify my mind in the absence of any third-party praise of how important my writings had become. One way I did this was by creating a fictional person to write about me. In most instances when I chose to do this, I made the individual a supporter of my work. On rare occasions, I chose the person to be my adversary and to point out my particular point of view in a sort of begrudging form of admiration. Two individuals I used with some frequency were “A. T. Heist” and his wife, “Mrs. A. T. Heist” (who was Nancy). I used one or the other to act as my admirer or accuser. In an unpublished manuscript titled “An Emissary of Evil Influences,” Mrs. A. T. Heist called me an inconspicuous and unimportant hanger-on at the edge of various causes, whether it was the trial of 91 Bishop Brown, with my “crack-brain” defense of atheism; my subversive essays and satanic propaganda; my unabridged defense of 100% freedom of speech and press; my advocacy for the utmost freedom for sex reformers in eugenics, birth control, and free love; my defense for the most radical agitators; or my defense of the most blasphemous discourse. “He has defended every one of the fifty-seven varieties of heresy and every class of heretic and degree of criminality. You can be sure,” explained Mrs. Heist, “that Theodore Schroeder is in the background somewhere out of sight, offering ammunition for the sharpshooters who stand in the front row limelight.” To feed my ego, Nancy also wrote glowing articles that pointed to my contributions. I am not ashamed to admit that I may have encouraged her to do this. To be honest, much of what she wrote reflected my self-appraisals. She just put them in her own words and for that, I was sincerely grateful. One example is the following quote: Mr. Schroeder is an Agnostic who thinks he knows; an Atheist who does not deny the existence the God. He is anti-Christ without ever having specifically denied the truth of any Christian doctrine. He is an emissary of Satan without being on speaking terms with his infernal majesty. In short, Mr. Schroeder is the embodiment of a new method for discrediting the Christian’s Christianity and all other mystical religions. Nancy also authored several topical, biographical, and bibliographic summaries of my works. Included among them was Theodore Schroeder on Free Speech, a Bibliography (1919); Toward Self-Reliance and Freedom: Verses (1922); A Unique Heathen, to which is Now Added Theodore Schroeder on the Erotogenesis of Religion (1922); Theodore Schroeder’s Use of the Psychologic Approach to Problems of Religion, Law, Criminality, Sociology and Philosophy (1922); and One Who is Different (1927). * * * With my education, I should have made a lot of money. But I did not. Nevertheless, I was a success because, at each stage in my development, I was able to do the things I was most interested in doing. Complacently seated in their ivory tower of illusions, the conservatives ignored me, although their policemen treated me as an enemy of society. Liberals frowned upon me because I could see no importance in the piffling little reforms they used to reconcile the irreconcilable conflicts between the exploiters and the natural laws of democratization. The radicals denounced me because I seemed to be thwarting their efforts to secure a truly democratic society by some overnight miracle, and without first developing democratic mindedness. All were impatient and could not await the slow processes of educating the masses or of the artificial acceleration of the natural processes of psycho-social evolution that I insisted upon. I have regrets for my unfinished work, but none for a misspent life. 92 Chapter 4 Psychoanalyzed: 1914-1915 In the fall of 1914, I was fifty years of age. Until then, the most important people in my life had been my parents, Theodor and Barbara Schroeder, who raised me free from any orthodox moral upbringing; Robert G. Ingersoll, the “Great Agnostic;” and Ludwig Feuerbach whose book, The Essence of Christianity (1841), challenged the whole trend of philosophical, psychological, and economic thinking in his day. A German anthropologist and philosopher who advocated atheism and materialism, his critique of Christianity strongly influenced Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, Friedrich Engels, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Karl Marx, for whom he was a dominant influence. Nevertheless, Marx reacted negatively to his psychological approach and developed in its place a world of dialectic materialism. I was also familiar with German socialist Eduard Bernstein who drew upon the literature of “mob psychology;” English physician and social reformer Henry Havelock Ellis;32 German physician and psychiatrist Albert von Schrenck Notzing;33 and German psychiatrist Richard von Krafft-Ebing,34 author of Psychopathia Sexualis (1886). My choice of reading material was unusual in its quantity and still more unusual in its subject matter. I never read fiction or poetry, nor did I ever go to the theater or the movies. These facts I think also express the related absence of any feeling or fantasy life. My experiences caused me to believe that all legal, social, and economic problems are in reality aspects of a psychological problem and I began using the psychoanalytic technique exclusively as a method of research. I published numerous case histories of religious mania as alternative aspects of sexual derangements and concluded that religion, not theology, is our enemy as it represents a complete negation of the liberal modernist viewpoint and of the radical humanists. Sigmund Freud As I contemplated my return to the subject of religious psychology, I groped for something that would be more useful than what I already knew on the subject. In this frame of mind, I met Morton Prince, a successful Boston psychologist. I told him what I was after, and with some levity, he suggested that I needed to study the works of the Austrian neurologist and psychoanalyst Sigmund Freud, who found sex in everything, including religion. I started reading Freud’s books that had been translated into English. These included his Three Contributions to the Sexual Theory (1910); Selected Papers on Hysteria and Other Psychoneuroses (1912); The Interpretation of Dreams (1913); and Psychoanalysis, Its Theories and Practical Application (1914). However, I 32 Henry Havelock Ellis (1859-1939) was an English physician whose study of sexual behavior led to his Man and Woman (1894) and the seven-volume Studies in the Psychology of Sex (1897-1928) challenging the taboos of Victorian sexuality. He examined homosexuality, masturbation, and the physiology of sex among other subjects and sought to dissipate popular ignorance toward sexuality. In the United States, until 1935, his books were available only to members of the medical profession. 33 Albert von Strenck-Notzing (1862-1929) was a psychical researcher and physician in Munich. Studied hypnotism, thought-transference, telekinesis, ectoplasm, materialization, and alterations of personality. Became an authority on sexual anomalies and criminal psychopathy. 34 Richard von Krafft-Ebing (1840-1902) was a German neuro-psychiatrist and a pioneer in psycho-pathology. His interests included genetic functions in insanity, sexual deviations, epilepsy, syphilis, and hypnosis. His Psychopathia Sexualis (1886) was a breakthrough publication addressing sexual aberrations. 93 soon discovered that I did not know how to read them and had the feeling that I was not getting the true meaning. To assist me, I employed Dr. James Samuel Van Teslaar in Boston to help interpret the facts for my research. That proved unsatisfactory for I now know that he was as ignorant as I was of psychoanalysis. Freud found that numerous people were suffering from neurasthenia (nervous exhaustion) for whom all treatment of the physical nervous system failed to improve. His research showed that there was nothing fundamentally wrong with its victims. The usual tests showed them to be quite sane and organically sound. Yet they were not normal and their lives had acquired a succession of miseries that were difficult to understand. These miseries were usually phobias or abnormal fears and had long been noted even among some of the world’s greatest men. Napoleon, for instance, could be thrown into a frenzy of fear at the sight of a black cat. Gioachino Rossini, the great musical composer, would walk miles rather than ride a train. Thomas Carlyle, one of the world’s greatest philosophers, suffered all his life from a succession of fears concerning his physical health. It seemed significant that the finer the mental organization and the more versatile the mind, the keener the distress. Freud discovered that these things did not imply any impaired reason but only affected the emotional life of the individual. He also discovered that their issues were nearly always, if not always, connected with their sexual life, and that with few exceptions, the patient was entirely ignorant in his or her waking hours of the source of the trouble. Freud explained that there was sex in the mind as well as in the body and that the influence of sex was demonstrated from the earliest months of infancy until the last years of old age. He knew that practically all our activities consciously or subconsciously were bound up one way or another with our sex life. When I say subconsciously, I refer to that part of our mind that is cognizant of happenings and experiences without our having any distinct knowledge of them. Things occur all about us that we are not conscious of at the time but which are absorbed in our minds. Those things are consciously remembered years afterward when they suddenly appear as recollections though we cannot distinctly recall having seen or heard of them at any particular time. Sometimes they are only recalled in dreams. On other occasions, they are recollected only in a hypnotic state. A patient under hypnosis will explain all sorts of experiences though, in his everyday waking moments, he has probably no knowledge of them. In the child, even from its earliest days, this subconscious mind is particularly alert and absorbs every occurrence even though the child does not appear to notice them at all. The impressions thus received are stored in the subconscious mind. And in the subconscious mind, they remain, apparently not affecting the child at all but determining it to a great extent through likes and dislikes of things and people that we can never reasonably and logically explain to ourselves or to others. It does not infrequently happen that sometimes in childhood we receive a severe emotional shock, which when we have grown up, we do not even remember but will have a most baneful effect on us as long as we live. We may be thirty or forty years old, but in certain particular matters, we remain all our lives only four or five, or ten years old according to the age at which we received the shock. In the strictly normal person, the effect might only be a slight aversion to a thing, idea, or person. In the more abnormal individual, it may become a deep-seated dread that haunts the person’s whole life. And a strange feature of it all is that the thing we dread may have nothing to do fundamentally with the thing that originally caused the shock. This is what is meant by the “law of association.” 94 The psychoanalyst has a real cure that has nothing to do with drugs, restoratives, or hypnosis. He cures by talking to the patient. It takes a long while, but little by little, he can probe back until he reaches the cause. When he has finally reached it, he can logically reason the patient out of the fear he has felt. Suffice it to say that psychoanalysis is prominent and growing rapidly every day and that the science, like many a good and worthy thing, is becoming in some quarters a fad and a craze. Many people have themselves been psychoanalyzed just for the fun of it. Dr. William A. White Quite by chance, I chose for my psychoanalyst Dr. William Alanson White, superintendent of St. Elizabeth's Hospital. It came somewhat by serendipity in that I had submitted a manuscript in early September 1914 to G. Stanley Hall, editor of the American Journal of Psychology. After reading it, he thought it more appropriate for White’s The Psychoanalytic Review which he co-edited with Smith Ely Jelliffe. I then submitted it to Dr. White for his consideration. Shortly afterward, I informed Dr. White that I would be visiting Washington to study some of his Negro inmates as he had suggested. Once there, however, I decided to submit myself to White for psychoanalysis. From the age of thirty-three until his retirement thirty-four years later, Dr. White had held the position of superintendent of St. Elizabeths. He entered Cornell University at age fifteen and then took up the study of medicine at the Long Island College Hospital Medical School where he graduated in 1891. He was in the last class of students the school graduated with only two years of instruction. His first position was as an ambulance and house surgeon at the Eastern District Hospital of Brooklyn. After several minor appointments, he began working at Binghamton State Hospital where he eventually rose to the equivalent of assistant superintendent. When he learned of the position opening at the Government Hospital for the Insane in Washington, D. C., he applied and was appointed by executive order of President Theodore Roosevelt in 1903. At the time, the era of psychiatry was just beginning. Soon afterward, he was made Professor of Nervous and Mental Diseases at Georgetown University’s Medical School, and in 1904, as Professor of Psychiatry at George Washington University. His Outlines of Psychiatry, published in 1907, became the standard textbook in American psychiatry from 1907 to 1936, appearing in fourteen revised editions. The book also included psychoanalytic conceptions for the first time. In 1913, he cofounded The Psychoanalytic Review. Of White’s 287 published papers and books, twenty were in the field of forensic psychiatry. Two of his books in this area were Insanity and the Criminal Law (1923) and Crimes and Criminals (1933). A vigorous opponent of capital punishment, it was his opposition to how it was practiced in our penal system that influenced my thinking on the vengefulness of society and of the law in dealing with problems that should be addressed on an individual basis. Like me, he was a firm believer in the principle of psychological determinism and that the makeup of the offender and the environment were factors for a jury to take into consideration before rendering a verdict. In this regard, he was conscious of the need to protect the constitutional rights of the mentally ill, something I never forgot. White brought to psychiatry a scientific perspective and championed the cause of psychoanalysis in the United States. It was to him that I submitted myself for a period of seven months. Nancy remained in Cos Cob while I took up residence at the Hotel Winston, and later at 95 the Hotel Powhatan. In the beginning, I thought I was going only to understand how to pursue my research into the psychological correlation between sex and religion, but I found that I had plenty of conflicting impulses, and although they were not very intense, they still needed to be outgrown if I wished to do my best work. This was a fortunate choice on my part for Dr. White was the only psychiatrist I had heard of, or yet read about, who had a hunch that there existed a natural subjective process called psycho-sexual maturing. It then became my determination to transform his hunch into a fully developed theory of evolutionary psychology. I had written a little on the subject from the standpoint of the old psychology but Dr. White led me from psycho-sexual maturing to psycho-social evolution, and from there, to define my new approach to every problem. Evolutionary psychology means the inner subjective changes that go on within us. This is called the process of psychological maturing and is the growing awareness of differences between the facts of our everyday problems and the feelings associated with them. It also involves the challenge of what we do with or about the facts as we become more and more conscious of the differences. Many physically mature adults simply continue to act out their feelings even after becoming aware of the difference between their feelings and the objective facts that constitute the factors behind their problems. This is the essence of the infantilism of many of our leaders and probably most of their followers. Evolutionary psychology, the study of behavior as understood through the lens of those physical and psychological dispositions that helped our ancestors survive, has entered the family of sciences and will probably produce an intellectual war that will be more destructive of our accepted social and “spiritual” values than that produced by Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species nearly a century ago. The intellectual atomic bomb that I have in mind was implied in Dr. White’s conception of psychoanalytic therapy. This explosive bomb was gradually developed from an unnoticed paragraph in his Mechanisms of Character Formation (1922) dealing with problems of psychiatry. Just as Professor Einstein’s innocent-looking mathematic equation produced the atomic bombs that exploded over Japan, so it seems certain that the equally innocent words of Dr. White will soon become the intellectual bomb for the next intellectual war. Here are the benevolent words from which the atomic bomb of intellectual warfare of the future will develop. No solution to the impulsive conflict can come about except by the satisfaction of both these [physical and psychological dispositions] diametrically opposed tendencies. It follows too that no conflict can be solved on the psycho-evolutionary level of the conflict. That is to say, two mutually opposed tendencies can never unite their forces except at a higher psycho-evolutionary level in an all-inclusive synthesis which lifts the whole situation to a level above that on which the conflict arose. With these words, Dr. White made me conscious of the need and desire for sexual information about my early life. I acquired knowledge of this subject in three ways. The first of these was by timid experimentation. Fortunately, the very ignorance of my parents, and the fact that they both had a very sane, if not enlightened attitude toward sex without their knowing it or intending it, had given me a kind of psychological preparedness that made my experimentations possible with but a minimum degree of damage to me. The next means of enlightenment was the reading of books. Those that I read were of the last century but were of the best scientific character 96 at that time. It was during this part of my life when sex was a taboo topic that I began agitating for realistic sex education. By dint of my experiences with sex, and the unconditioned attitude and state of consciousness about these experiences, plus the information I obtained from these “frontier” books about sex, I was certain that realistic sex education should be taught, discussed, analyzed, and written about. In the general realm of sex, as everywhere, growing immunity from realistic harm will come only by the general development and application of the scientific temperament and method. In our time, the most neglected aspect of sex is its psychology. Those with lesser emotionalism should immediately become acquainted with such knowledge. Sex superstitions, and the resulting ignorance of sexual psychology, are the main factors in our educational system, which tends to push every learner toward, into, or even beyond the psychopathic borderland. It is ignorance and fear of remedial evolutionary psychology, and the resultant morbid psychological imperatives, that bring about most juvenile delinquency, marital misfits, crime, riots, revolutions, and wars. Our greatest need is an education for outgrowing instead of intensifying the childhood love-hate and inferiority-superiority complexes and their derivative, the sadomasochistic complex. This outgrowing of conflicting impulses cannot be promoted through “inspirational psychology,” pedagogical indoctrination, or suggestion therapy. Such methods can produce symptomatic changes, and increase the suggestibility. Thus regression by counter suggestion remains imminent. We need an education based upon evolutionary psychology to promote conscious psycho-sexual maturing of the young and for an acceleration of the natural processes of psycho-social evolution. While I was undergoing psychoanalysis, I made an independent investigation of several religiously insane inmates and some freak religionists outside the asylum. Although I am without a medical degree, my essays on psychoanalytic theory and practice frequently appeared in professional journals that discussed sexual psychology and psychoanalytic therapy. Unlike other contributors to the journals, I was not interested in psychoanalysis as a means of treating hysteria or insanity. For me, it was merely a new approach to understanding and evaluating our religious, legal, moral, and political beliefs and institutions, and even our philosophical creeds. In my approach, I came near to having a monopoly. My special point of emphasis was on the use of psychoanalytic theory and technique for the investigation of religion, especially mystical Christianity and other mystical experiences. Since that time, I have lectured and written on the topic. It necessitated my duel with many well-meaning illusionists about sex, and while I did not at this time delineate the long list of persons and institutions who catered to and built upon these illusions, I will tell you that they were many and varied. My research also led me to the study of ancient sex worship where I discovered that the sinfulness of particular sexual habits was a carryover from the ancient sex worshipers, and it was from this discovery that I started formulating a method whereby psycho-sexual maturing could be taught through sex education. Psychoanalysis and Suggestion The first important thing I learned about psychoanalysis was from Dr. White, and it was: “There can be no psychologic recovery from an impulsive conflict except by developing the patient’s psyche to a unification, at an evolutionary level above that on which the conflict arose.” This evolutionary development means the maturing of desires and mental processes. It is from this 97 viewpoint of dealing only with intellectual processes, then, that we must define psychoanalysis as a more scientific procedure than naked suggestion. Among physicists and biologists, it is generally thought, I believe, that the scientific age of our understanding has not been reached until we can make some practical application of our understanding of nature’s processes, or are seeking to make more exact our understanding of the laws according to which things behave. The very essence of a scientific stage of development is the enlargement and the better use of our understanding of the behavior of things; that is, of nature’s processes. This, I think, is equally true in psychology. Accordingly, I believe that we are not working at the higher levels of scientific attainment until, and only so far, as the psychanalyst approaches an exclusive devotion to the study and application of psychological processes in every aspect. It follows that mere naked suggestion is not on the level of scientific psychological procedure. Inevitably suggestion deals only with concrete remedial propositions, not with natural evolutionary processes. The scientific state of psychoanalysis is reached only when suggestion has been minimized, quite to the point of extinction, and the devotion is quite as exclusively to the application and artificial acceleration of known processes of psychological evolution. Only by such a procedure can the patient’s emotional conflict be solved on an evolutionary level above that on which the conflict arose. When the patient has attained that state, he neither desires nor needs any concrete suggestions for the solution of his problems. His emancipation from immature dependence upon the analyst is completed. Only so can we artificially recondition the impulses and mental mechanisms of a patient or pupil, to make them function on an ever higher evolutionary level of the desires and mental process. Only by such means can we get a psychological recovery, as distinguished from a mere social recovery. At this stage, all concrete suggestions have quite disappeared, by being merged into true psychoanalytic procedure, which only then has reached a scientific status of dealing exclusively with mental processes and intellectual methods. In the psychological aspect, personality or character is rated not according to conduct but according to the degree of evolutionary development of the impulses and the mental processes that accompany and in part determine conduct. Very infantile parasitic impulses in psychologically morbid but physically mature persons can be “justified” by the aid of very great erudition used with great intellectual ingenuity. In this sense, mental maturity does not concern itself much with the quantity of cultural acquisition, but rather with the use that is made of it, and with the habitual mental attitudes toward both objective and subjective realities; as with the determination of how far the interests are unified and upon what evolutionary level of desires and mental process the self-expression is taking place. By mere suggestion, we may change some particular line of conduct which is the expression of one aspect of a subjective conflict. This can be accomplished without enlarging the underlying impulses. What can be brought about by pure suggestion is to change a subconscious or a consciously suppressed impulse into an efficient determinant for modified conduct. Because of the higher suggestibility inherent in the subjective conflict, that change can also be undone by another counter-suggestion. That is why mere suggestive therapeutics is so often followed by a relapse. The patient may always have had a perfectly logical and truthful special plea with which to rationalize the dominant compulsion or its antecedents, as well as the results of the emotional disturbance. This rationalization may even utilize far more objective data than is usually marshaled in defense of contrary lines of conduct. But all this in itself does not promote peace of mind, nor such an approach to maximum efficiency in the manipulation of the environment, as will ensure a grownup’s comfortable adjustment to the habits of a mature psychologic level. A social recovery 98 may be had, and a social regression follows thereon, without any fundamental change in the individual’s psychological status. When we attain the attitude of those psychanalysts who think only of dealing with nature’s processes, then the suggestion of concrete remedies is supplanted by a very different procedure. Now the patients, or pupils, in the course of the reductive analysis, are enlightened only about psychological processes, as these are exhibited by the subject, and are related to a like process operating in the immediate human environment. Where suggestion only offers concrete changes of conduct as a solution to a problem, pure psychoanalysis attempts to supply a psychological development that will enable the patient to make wise solutions without the need for suggestion or the help of others. Psychoanalysis gives them an evolutionary concept of the psyche, as a plan of self-development to work to, as well as a technique for continuing the self-discipline by which the process of maturing the desires can be indefinitely pursued. Thus one may achieve a psychological recovery, rather than merely develop a new moral code, or re-enthrone an old morality with the same old morbid over-valuation, still operating and practically unchanged. This understanding of the evolutionary process, when imparted through a thorough course of psychoanalysis, gives us a working plan with some vision of its future demands and the conditions of its realization. What is Psychoanalysis? Psychoanalysis deals principally with emotions rather than with the reasoning faculties, and since most of our actions are determined by our emotions rather than our reason, it is correspondingly important. Freud was the originator of the new science, and he employed it at first in the cure of certain nervous diseases. These miseries were usually phobias or abnormal fears that had been noted even among some of the world’s greatest men. As I noted earlier, Freud discovered that these things were not concerned with any impairment of reason, but with the emotional life of his patients and that nearly always, if not always, were connected with the sex life of the individual. In effect, all human activities are the workings of two fundamental instincts, the food instinct, and the sex instinct, and though we are not conscious of it, most of the beautiful things we have in the world are merely demonstrations of the sex instinct. All our activities, consciously or subconsciously, are bound up one way or another with our sex life. Sometimes they involve dreams. Sometimes they are recollected only in the hypnotic state. As first developed, psychoanalysis was a new way to cure mental ailments that could not be correctly explained in terms of bodily causes. These diseases are called functional disorders of the nervous system. The first step in this new cure is always to help the patient understand his troubles in terms of his own past emotional experiences. I was made to see that whatever I am, I was the product of my psychological past as developed under the law of cause and effect. I am now aware of those past experiences and the way they influence me in the present. In the aggregate, we call these the unconscious and subconscious causes which control our unconscious thoughts and conscious behavior. At first, it was thought that the patient could accomplish an automatic self-cure merely by getting acquainted with the more important factors of his past emotional life and with the manner of its making him a misfit. However, in most cases, this has proved to be a delusion. At other 99 times, specialists found that what they had thought of as a cure was only a temporary change of symptoms for the conflicting urges of a so-called “split personality.” So, it was discovered that the patient required a still more penetrating and thorough self-knowledge concerning the causes and inner processes of his affliction. Thus, it came to be realized that if the psychoanalyst wished to do something more useful than suggestion therapy, he must acquire a new technique based upon the knowledge of his mentality derived from having submitted himself to psychoanalytic inspection under the eyes of an expert. A psychoanalyst uses this material to help the patient outgrow the control of childhood experiences over his maturer existence. In other words, he helps the patient to mature his impulses. This is the road to a more realistic basis for conduct and thought—a more objective and less emotional attitude toward human nature. With the growth of this enlarged insight, the healing technique becomes ever more difficult and the conception of the nature of the psychological recovery becomes more complex—so much so that the treatment grows longer. In more difficult cases, it extends over years. Thus, a specialist doing full-time work cannot hope to accomplish a thorough cure of more than half a dozen cases per year. This indicated to me that psychoanalysis must be put to more important uses than curing an imperceptible few people. Why not use it as an educative means? Surely young people and others who have not yet reached a pathological stage could be helped to outgrow those influences in their childhood which tend to perpetuate immature mental habits and suggestibility. This brings us to the necessity of applying psychoanalytic theories to educational psychology. This is the process of maturing the impulses and intellectual tools of the pupil above infantile and childish mental habits which include unstable emotions, conflicting impulses, and the consequent high degree of suggestibility. To the extent that we use education as a technique for maturing the impulses and intellectual tools of pupils, we will be confirming the oldest educational injunction in history: “Know Thyself.” Never before has this been possible. We are coming to see that all our human problems are problems of our immature human nature. Such mental maturing based on self-knowledge is the very best means for a better understanding and solution of human problems. Knowing yourself is an endless process of an ever-enlarging acquaintance with previously unknown parts of our human nature. This means we need to become acquainted with our unconscious mental processes and the conditions that control our conscious thoughts and actions. These derive their power and direction through many emotional experiences of our past life of which we are not now conscious and of which we may never be. These begin at least as far back as the experience of being born. In the aggregate, these constitute our so-called unconscious inner mental and emotional processes—our unconscious thoughts. Psychoanalysts will tell us that we cannot understand our common unconscious thought except so far as we become conscious of such processes as were once working below the surface of our consciousness. Becoming conscious of previously unconscious processes within ourselves may stimulate and guide us toward the new memory revival of similar experiences. Thus, it becomes apparent that psychoanalysis does not consist in memorizing the words of a new theory of psychology, or of your unknown self. On the contrary, it is a special kind of experience now coming to be viewed as a new kind of education. It consists of two elements. The first is the process of becoming conscious of our unknown self. The second is the coordination of these new factors 100 of our conscious personal experience with all of the available cultural data as a means of outgrowing our now-known (but formerly unconscious) thoughts and actions. Until we have learned about something of that method by personal experience, we will not be able to read psychoanalytic literature or acquire for ourselves an understanding of the mental content of its authors. The psychoanalysts call this emphatic reading. If we cannot read the author emphatically, then we are not understanding him, and we may easily be misled into a repudiation of his words without understanding them in the sense in which he used them. This brief statement probably will not satisfy our craving for information about psychoanalysis or our psychology. Nor will it make us acquainted with our unknown self, or tell us how to improve our personality. But it is hoped that it will stimulate a more hopeful interest in our unknown self and this new education as a scientific means for building a more efficient personality out of it. Practically all of the essays and books that I wrote and published before 1916, I now regard as very immature products even though some of them show considerable research and originality. As distinguished from my later writings, they were an attempt to explain human action in terms of psychological processes within individuals and to evaluate the result according to relative degrees of healthy-mindedness and psychological immaturity. My psychoanalysis, however, convinced me beyond any doubt of the limitations of my thinking faculties. In short, I cannot know the whole absolute truth even about any one thing. Neither can I know anything about any absolute, not even that it exists. It follows that psychological maturing results only in a little progress toward the unattainable absolute truth. The evolutionary psychologist can roughly determine which of the differing claims of truth has the least illusional elements—which is nearest to the unattainable absolute truth. This helps to explain my choice of relativism to any moralistic evaluation. It also explains my long-standing insistence that “obscenity” exists only in the mind of the observer. Psychoanalysis with its technique for dream interpretation consists in the use of “free associations” with dream factors. This and the resultant theory of a “latent content” for dreams are often the points of attack for those who still have a skeptical attitude toward psychoanalysis. Such critics assert that “free associations” are predominantly sexual in content and are the product of suggestions from the analyst. These suggestions together with the organic condition of the dreamer, explain the sexuality in the “manifest content” of the dream and the erroneously alleged and non-existent latent content of dreams. For the psychoanalyst, such explanations seem utterly to miss the psychogenetic viewpoint. To eliminate the possibility of suggestion by a second party I must supply an illustration of free associations which developed when practically no possibility of such suggestions existed. To this end, I am going to tell the story of an unpremeditated and unexpected group of associated words, and their elaboration by further associations. Around this will come some discussion of psychological theory. Early one morning at the age of 54, I was sitting alone in my library. I had before me a document showing an attempt by someone to imitate my signature. At the time, I was not aware of the gender of the person whose forgery I was inspecting, or of any influence of that person on my subsequent thought associations. Neither was I conscious of my adolescent practice toward perfecting my signature which at the time was motivated by a desire to make me more attractive in the estimation of girls with whom I might have correspondence. The signature, I later learned, was that of a woman, my literary assistant. As I looked at it, however, my memory took me back to my adolescent years when I had indulged in practicing my penmanship to ensure a uniform and well-rounded signature. 101 As I recalled my efforts toward becoming more proficient in my handwriting, I picked up my pen and quite thoughtlessly I began to write. When I finished, I found that I had written a list of words: Abercrombie and Co.—Calcutta—Iroquois—Magruder—Possum—Calcimine—Smart Set—Hangman—Nice—Lice—Porcelain. A little later I was struck by the thought that without premeditation or any conscious design toward that end, I had produced an unusual group of words. My curiosity was stimulated to inquire what could have been the determinants of these incongruous choices. Even as I treated these words as symbols of my mental state, no element of unification was apparent. These words were all “free associations” with the penmanship style of my secretary in whom I must confess to having had an erotic interest. So long as I saw the woman’s penmanship as the only factor in my “free associations,” I missed this psychological aspect. Psychologically, the more important question was that which inquired from my past life the personal psychic contribution toward determining the choice of these special words in preference to all other words as my response to the stimulus of this woman’s handwriting. Probably no other person on earth would have made that same response to the same stimulus. The discovery of this personal contribution from my own past life became a determinant in the precise character of my response to this objective stimulus. Upon discovering that I had put forth an unusual combination of words, I first tried to find some objective connection between the words themselves, or between the things these words usually symbolized. I failed and had I not previously received psychoanalysis, I might have stopped my investigation. If I had never been tempted to look for the thoughts and feelings within me that these words also symbolized, I might never have found the elements of unification in these word associations. Under such neglect on my part, I would never have discovered the latent psychological import of the choices that were unconsciously yet effectively expressed in these word associations. Relying upon experience, I assumed that each of these words must be the center of a complex experience, united by some common underlying feeling, with the other complex experiences symbolized by each of the remaining words, and by the stimulus that brought them into being. As a mere matter of curiosity, I was prompted to concentrate my attention on the separate words of this collection to see what images from my past would present themselves. I did not follow the order in which the words were written and I do not now recall what order I did follow. But I can reproduce the pictures from my experience that came to my mind. These memories exhibited a subjective element of unification and causation for the particular choices expressed in the above group of words. Abercrombie and Co. This first suggested a civil engineer named Abercrombie under whom I worked in New Mexico when I was 18- or 19 years of age. Out of my brief association with him, only one incident concerning him sticks in my memory. At the time we were living in movable camps and making a preliminary survey for a railroad. On returning to camp one evening after a day in the field and far in advance of the work party, he told us of his experience with a Mexican woman. It seems he went to her hut in quest of something to eat. However, he could not speak Spanish nor could she speak English. His first gestures are inefficient, he exhibited a coin to help the rubbing of his abdomen as a suggestion that he wanted to buy food. The woman promptly laid down on the floor and pulled up her dress. We boys in the party thought this was a particularly good joke on the old man because of his extreme Puritanism for which the rest of us 102 had little use. But what about the words “and Co.” attached to the name? This did not develop until later. Macedonia. In this connection, there came to my mind a priest of some far Eastern cult whom I met in Wisconsin when I was about eighteen. He lived in a tent, wore queer clothes, traveled from place to place without money, or much apparent forethought, and preached strange doctrines. At this time, I have no independent memory that he came from Macedonia. But in light of other experiences, there was some evidence at the time that he came from there. His doctrines were of great interest to me although I cannot now remember what they were. However, heretical doctrines had a great affective value on me because my mother’s Protestantism had cost her ostracism from her Catholic family. Furthermore, because of my attachment to my mother, I had as early as my fifth year acquired an integration of sexual curiosity. My pre-adolescent sexuality, a forerunner of my more conscious and more mature interest, was incestuous in its nature. This is one of the common facts of life that opponents of psychoanalysis like to denounce very vigorously so they may better remain unconscious of it as having operated on themselves. By a familiar process of transference, my infantile erotic interest in my mother attached itself to her heresy, and later with enlarged understanding, it expanded into sympathy with heresy in general. Calcutta. That was the address of a woman whom I knew. Years ago, she lived in a tent near my summer home in Cos Cob. That was before I had submitted myself to psychoanalysis and had only read a minimum of psycho-analytic literature. She was a literary worker and I tried to give her help in unraveling some of her psychological perplexities. We talked freely about her sexual life and I entertained some sexual phantasies toward her. Also, she had some remote resemblance to my mother in her outward appearance. Now I come back to Abercrombie & Co. In this connection, came to me the thought that Abercrombie & Co. was a firm that dealt in sporting goods. I tried to verify this in a New York telephone book and I found a firm by that name who were tentmakers. Then I remembered that some years before knowing the Calcutta woman, I had purchased a waterproof cover from this firm. I intended to use this cover as a “wigwam” for outdoor sleeping on the porch of a small building on our property. I remembered that on my suggestion, the Calcutta woman had sent to this same dealer for some extra canvas and tenting materials. Here again, we had a sexual factor giving affective value to accompanying objectives and furnishing an element of unification between objectives that were not usually connected. I could now see the similarity of my emotional tones associated with Abercrombie, the engineer of my Mexican days, and Abercrombie & Co., the tentmakers. Smart Set. First, I thought of the magazine by that name then of the ‘fast set’ to whom it catered. This again brought me to my student days. When not engaged in railroad surveying, or hunting trips of hundreds of miles on horseback, nor in the joys of being a box car tramp, I would return to the University. This was because my wanderlust into the wilds brought me no satisfactory sex mate. So I came back to the University where my nearest relationship to the ‘smart set’ came by joining a college fraternity. Here I worked out the other side of my conflict by trying to play the part of some “dude” in the “smart set” as I imagined him to be. At times I fancied that I had almost broken into the “swell, fast set.” Here was the antithesis of the box car tramp in both phantasy and conduct. From the “wigwam,” I turned to the “palace” of the smart set but still looking half-consciously for the ideal Indian woman. At that time, I would probably have denied all this quite vehemently. Had anyone told me that by psychoanalytic methods a lie could be 103 detected, I would doubtless have found an argument to prove to my satisfaction that there was little truth or virtue in psychoanalysis or its different theories. The organic conditions within me, and the immediate objective stimulus, would be accepted as an adequate explanation because I was unwilling to admit that these had once produced conscious phantasies that were still working. Hangman. This reminded me of a lawful hanging I witnessed while a university student. During a little “frat blowout” in Chicago, I met a member of my college fraternity who was employed in the office of the sheriff of Cook County. It was through him that I received a pass to witness a hanging. The prisoner had been convicted of murdering a friend during a quarrel over fifty cents. Here again, we see the erotic interests of adolescence furnishing a subjective element of unification connecting words possessing no objective connection in themselves. Nice lice. This brought to mind a camp of railroad workers on the south shore of Lake Superior where I was employed in surveying. The bunkhouses of the laborers were infested with lice. It was reported that a man could put his hand within his shirt, scrape as many lice as possible from his body, and offer to bet that he had pulled out more than fifty lice on his hand. In the mess hall where the men were fed worked the daughter of the proprietor. This young woman was about as fine a specimen of physical womanhood as I had then seen. Of course, I entertained erotic phantasies about her. I thought of her as an extremely handsome female in a very lice-invested environment. Porcelain. This word brought to mind some porcelain in the house where the woman resided whose penmanship initiated this chain of associations and who was physically a handsome woman. I already said that I entertained an erotic interest in her. From her, I got a suggestion of the conflict between the love of freedom that impelled me to the railroad camp where only tin dishes were used, and the china associated with the social life of the smart set. Magruder. This word brought me no associations. From the viewpoint of understanding myself, it arguably became the most important word in the group. I believed this because of the possibility that it was a distorted symbol for some experience that at the time was more shameful than the rest, and may have been buried among the forgotten unpleasantness of the past. Possum. This term took me back to my college days and other students with whom I frequently sang a possum “coon song” at midnight around the girls’ dormitory. All this again brought out the love of snobbery which was the other aspect of the conflict that made the young Indian woman and the waitress in the railroad camp seem attractive. Calcimine. This reminded me of a room in the dwelling place of the woman whose handwriting stimulated this series of associations. The room had been calcimined by an unskilled workman and turned into a sleeping room. Again, there was the obvious erotic emotional tone. The Psychoanalytic Viewpoint Now let us ponder a little over this group of associations. If I had looked only to the import of these words as they were defined in a dictionary, and as they symbolized things objectively to myself, then everything said by the opponents of psychoanalysis would appear to be perfectly true. All these criticisms may still be true if you take into account the import of the original word associations and treat them as symbols of something in the subjectivity of every person. But the 104 whole situation changed as soon as we contemplated their significance as symbols of something of emotional value in my psyche, the product of my own past life. This included my concepts and feelings as being symbolic of objective things. From this viewpoint, we are dealing with more intimate aspects of psychology. If now you think of these words as representing my subjective symbolization of the objective realities, then they did just that. A new and special significance which is my exclusive property depended upon my own experience in association with the words. These experiences and their effect upon my psyche were necessarily unlike the experiences and effects within every other person who was tempted to use these same word symbols. It is this personal meaning and the peculiarly personal valuation of the words that must be sought if we are seeking to understand psychoanalytic theory. The psychoanalytic viewpoint requires us to consider these words—all words in fact—as symbols of symbols; that is to say, we find their meaning in the experience as explanatory of the present choice of those who use them. The psyche of each observer establishes a point of contact, a relational existence between the stimulus in the environment of the present and the subjective record of the environment of the past. The psychoanalyst is primarily concerned with the latter aspects of this related existence. In one sense it may be said that the psychoanalyst is essentially a behaviorist. But here again, the same possibilities of controversy exist; the psychoanalyst is not very much concerned with the outward and visible aspects of behavior, except as symptoms. His task is to understand the more subjective aspects of behavior, especially concerning their origin in the past, and the mental and emotional mechanisms by which that past becomes an efficient element in determining the present reactions to stimuli. The professional psychoanalyst would see in this narrative of mine much more than mere words reveal. In all my associations, I evinced a choice just as certainly predetermined by the remainder of my past as was the choice of the original group of words predetermined. By a sufficient succession of free associations, applied to the virtue of similar psychologic imperatives and mechanisms, the whole of my life was revealed. I do not mean that these associations are “free” in the sense of free-will theory. On the contrary, I am predisposed to believe that there is an absolute but yet unknown determinism in every factor of that association. What a determinist means by free association is freedom from conscious restraint against giving expression to whatever comes into one’s consciousness. It does not mean that either in the coming, or in its essence, there is anything free from the determinism of antecedent experiences, or that the desire to express or withhold it is free from the influence of our psychological past. I repudiate the freedom of the will and the implied moral responsibility in favor of that doctrine which holds that whatever is, is inevitable. This psychological determinism has nothing in common with the doctrine of predestination and foreordination held by some Christians. The determinism I speak of is purely mechanistic and materialistic. From this point of view, I refused to condemn and punish criminals of any sort. I even sought to introduce a new criminology and social psychology founded upon the theory of absolute psychological determinism. I proclaimed it the height of wisdom to give to every criminal sympathetic understanding. Evolution of Love-Hate Conflict 105 If youngsters start early in their life in the direction of a “split personality,” then they are ill-prepared for facing the stress and storm of adolescence and pubescence. Instead, they become torn between the lure and fear of sex and cannot find an objective solution for their problems. Whatever they do or don’t do, they are troubled and inefficient. Consequently, the intensity of the love-hate conflict is increased. No humans can be seen as they are. They will seem to be both very lovable and very hateful. But that all duplicates the delusional factors of the child’s original emotional reactions to his or her parents. These qualities do not inhere in the persons that evoke such a feeling but are quite exclusively the qualities of those persons who are the unfortunate victims of the more serious inner conflict between love and hate, and these predispositions are delusionally read into them as if they necessarily inhere in them. During infancy and childhood, most parents apply some kind of discipline to their offspring for the development of social decorum. If the parents are too stern, then the child may get the feeling of not being wanted. If the parent is too indulging, we get the spoiled child. Both promote the kind of incapacity which in later life may result in unspecified phobias. When the parents thwart or punish their children, they are hated. Because hate is wholly a matter of feeling, it always precludes better understanding. The child’s feelings do not discriminate between this unpleasant act of the parent and all the rest of the parental personality. Therefore, the child cannot resent this painful act and yet love the parent for the many loving services rendered. At the moment, the child apparently must hate the whole of the parental personality. Next week, maybe, the parent renders the very same agreeable help to the child, and it responds with love. Once again, the feeling does not discriminate. Once again, it is a love of the whole personality without an emotional appraisal of its worth. Such is the process that makes all of our loves and hates delusional. It is always a process of taking some part as if it were whole; always taking appearances for reality. It may be flattering to the parent’s delusional sense of power to intensify the childish joys and loving responses, but it is very bad for the future psychology of the child. When the spoiling parents withdraw from the scene, the world will not continue the productive and coddling care of such parents. By then, the physically mature child will have no effective technique for adjusting to its new world. Of course, many other, subtler, and less conscious experiences also contribute to the same results. If such experiences as have been referred to are often repeated, then the more intense loves and hates become a sort of habit—a predisposition with which the child faces all the problems of his or her later life. When we say that the man or woman is touchy, easily flies off the handle, and habitually goes off half-cocked, such are split personalities even though they may not have reached the pathological degree of intensities in their loves and hates. The “split personality” implies a divided interest that its victims cannot harmonize. Probably most criminals and most religious zealots belong to this group of split personalities. Unfortunately, even our educators, moralists, and criminologists seem to be too much under the influence of inconsistent urges to try to remedy this difficulty at its source, namely, in the psychology of childhood. Love has meaning only by contrast, with its inseparable hates, both being symptoms of the hove-hate complex. The most passionate love of today may be the equally passionate hater of tomorrow if the love object disappoints some emotionally important expectation. That same hate may go out to those who discredit the perfection of the love object. It is the love-hate complex that makes courtship a game of hide-and-seek; marriage an entrancing gamble; and romantic love the most colossal deceiver. The victims of the more intense love-hate complex must envy and resent 106 the greater healthy-mindedness and poise of others, which enable those others to see their fellow humans almost as they are; see them nearly free from the distortions of either love or hate. These persons with the lesser distortions of love will tend to be relatively calm and understanding; free from moral sentimentalism and its hateful moral judgments; free alike from condemnation, or the need to offer forgiveness. The capacity for extravagant romantic love is always a most terrible evil omen. While the “split personality” exhibits only its love side, psycho-neurotic authors write poems, songs, and novels in glorification of its romanticized symptoms. When the hatred of the love-hate complex dominates, the historian sometimes writes the record in blood. Parental Vacillation Usually, parents vacillate in their moods because they, too, are “split personalities.” They alternate between being over-stern or overindulgent. We psychologists say that they are not objective enough to steer a course of calm consistency about their children. As a consequence of this, the child tends to become bewildered and emotionally unbalanced. He cannot steer his course to ensure consistent love or approval according to any uniform standard because he must see everything through loves and hates, lures and fears. So he becomes a “split personality.” The best results for children come if the parents have a minimum of feeling and a maximum of consistency in the use of common sense to help the children adjust to their changing environment. To outgrow this condition, they must be helped to subordinate their emotional habits to such conduct as is dictated by common sense when applied to the eternal facts of their problems. The greatest change produced by the new psychology is in its treatment of delinquent and difficult children. Here the psychologist treats the so-called incorrigible child much as an auto mechanic treats an automobile engine that will not work. All the past experiences of such a human being are all taken apart and separately analyzed. This constitutes a new kind of education, a new and sometimes highly technical self-knowledge. This education deals with causes that come from our childhood experiments. These experiences are analyzed into many separate factors. In other words, we recondition human emotions much as the mechanic reconditions his engine. So we remake human nature and develop a new personality out of the old troublesome experiences. We make helpful cooperative human beings out of those who are antisocial because they are fundamentally incapable of making comfortable and happy experiences. The calm intellectual awareness of the sexual urge, and all its processes, can be solved without any personal or social injury by using a little intelligence and common sense. Our sexual troubles are nearly all due to those purists who prevented us from knowing all that is known in sexual matters, especially because they substituted psychotic moral values and theories with artificial and phantasmal penalties for the realities of our sexual life. They imposed morbid feelings and fantasies upon us in place of cold facts; they offered us a psychotic dream and called it heaven instead of a social life based on greater sanity and intelligence. When the fires of hell were growing dim in our imagination, the inhibited and perverted among them tried to scare us into life-long continence for fear of contracting syphilis. They asked us to respect and glorify their hallucinations as a substitute for nature’s laws. Instead of encouraging us to study and live in accord with the psychological laws of our evolving human nature, they demanded that we obey their morbid will to power with a frequent sadistic component which they labeled as “the will of God.” They claimed to know more about the science of psychology than they knew about their psychology or that of their neighbors. 107 Etiology of Hatred Perhaps this is a good place to expose the delusional mental processes by which such hatreds develop. I remember speaking to a woman who claimed to have suffered distressing experiences while rendering professional services to a company whose executives were Jewish. According to her rendition of events, she was badly treated by them and then gave that treatment an exaggerated emotional valuation. Because of these intense feelings, she could not make the distinction between these particular Jews and all other Jews. This is the same trick that emotions play upon children. When the parents cater to their whims, they love the parents. When the parents thwart them, they hate the parents. Their feelings will not help them to discriminate between this immediate act of the parents and the whole of their personalities. It may well be that this last thwarting was unjust or unreasonable. However, this one act is not the whole of the parental personality. Many other attitudes and acts evoke a loving parent. But under the influence of strong resentment, the hatred goes out in the whole of the parent. So, with my friend, her feelings did not help her to discriminate between the one Jew who had wronged her and other Jews. The delusion consisted in treating a part as if it were the whole. In some phases of psychology, this delusional method acquired the name of “all-or-none-reaction.” Love is not enough because the “split personality” can always find plenty of reasons to justify hate, wherever that is evoked. Race Prejudice The extent of racial prejudice in individuals is exactly proportionate to their emotional intensity and emotional instability. Whether this prejudice is expressed against racial, political, religious, economic, social, or national groups is immaterial. Different rationalizations do not imply any differences in the impulses themselves. The social importance may be more dependent upon the intensity of the prejudices than upon the subject matter, or the number of persons affected by them. It is quite accidental that my own experience with my prejudices, centered mostly around Jews and Negroes. Nevertheless, the psychological processes are quite the same in all cases, and that makes the subject matter of race important for our understanding of the psychology of prejudice. I was scared stiff when I saw my first Negro. I had been born among the pioneers in Wisconsin during the Civil War when Negroes had not yet made their appearance in my part of the world. At the time of my fright, I was about five or six years of age. Why was I frightened? A white child born in the South would have been accustomed to Negroes from his very first vision. Such a child probably could not have been shocked or frightened. Undoubtedly the major cause of my fear lay in the strangeness of the sight that was offered by that black man. I ran from him as any child might run from a strange large animal or a menacing clown. I have recently read that primitive Africans also ran when they saw their first white man. A friend told me of his experiences while sightseeing in small Italian villages before the First World War where children who were not accustomed to tourists, threw stones at his Negro friend. Of course, it is a psychological fact that whatever we fear we also hate to the same degree. Long after the memory of my fright had faded, my childish fear of Negroes remained preserved as an unconscious prejudice of hate. 108 I still remember something about how Negroes in Africa were pictured in children’s school books. They were posed with shields, spears, and clubs, and a menacing attitude. The characterization was that of savages rehearsing for warfare. At any rate, that was the impression I retained. Why do I remember these impressions of pictures and nothing else of that period? They must have affected my emotions so much that the image and feelings lasted until all other pictures of that period faded from memory. The psychological causation for that persistence was due to my fearful experience with that first Negro. Unaccompanied by any explanation to allay my fear, these pictures had the effect of intensifying and justifying that prior fear. Such artificial prejudice against Negroes will usually persist until consciously checked and corrected with facts. Often our infantile fears are intensified by the addition of guilty fears that originate in other experiences, mostly sexual. All this is quite incapable of correction until after we become adequately conscious of its existence, its sources, its delusional elements, and the processes of its deluding power over us. At present, the best way to achieve such consciousness is by submission to psychoanalysis which is principally used in the cure of functional mental disorders. As noted earlier, I did that during the winter months of 1914-15 and its correction allowed me to outgrow my childish love-hate complex. Outgrowing a psychological complex means something other than changing its symptoms. I hope that my race prejudices have now been completely outgrown and that a thoroughly objective standard of appraising human beings has been achieved as a substitute for my childish prejudice. Soon after attending the University of Wisconsin, I traveled west with a party of railroad surveyors. We got marooned in a small town where there was no hotel or residence large enough to accommodate our party and all but the boss had to sleep on the depot’s warehouse floor, with only a camp outfit for bedding. Our camp cook was a Negro man and I slept next to him on the soft side of the boards covered with a blanket. Nothing then registered in my emotions with his proximity. By that time, I had come to take Negroes for granted. So far as my conscious feelings were concerned, we were all just out working together to earn a living. Quite some years afterward, I learned that such proximity to a sleeping Negro in terms of apparent equality could somehow have damaged my “white culture,” whatever that means, or whatever I had of it. Even now, I cannot see that it did any harm to that culture or the white race. But I do remember that some very “fine people” regarded my conduct with passionate disapproval. Then I became a little embarrassed when telling of that harmless experience with the Negro cook. Some unconscious feeling of inadequacy impelled me to buy goodwill from these “fine people” by acting as if approving or at least living in harmony with their prejudices. By such imitation, there is often a redirection of hatred toward Negroes but with a very different origin in the hater. I regard all mob hatred as the result of an artificial redirection of different types of unconscious hatred. In this last incident, I saw the whole process of our persisting racial prejudices. Those among us who are relatively free from race prejudice nevertheless give some acquiescent approval to the prejudices of others. This is unavoidable because our culture factories leave us too ignorant to apply any objective standard for the relative social valuation of human personalities. Neither do they help us to outgrow our childish love-hate complex. This illusional transference of hate is shown by the general northern indifference to the unjust and anti-democratic treatment of Negroes. This is necessary for many people because of our defective educational system which often intensifies the love-hate complex of youths instead of helping them to overgrow it. 109 During my university days, I remember that a Negro from the University of Michigan played in our intercollegiate baseball team. We considered him a much better athlete than the white men on the same team. However, we expressed our unconscious prejudices against him and the Michigan baseball team by saying that the Negro was the “whitest man of that nine.” You see the unconscious assumption was that the white man’s average was the standard of judgment and that there was some virtue inherent in the whiteness of skin which was absent in those particular whites. In other words, behind our compliment, there was an unconscious prejudice against Negroes as a class. Only on that assumption could we have chosen to regard these words as complimentary, and to speak of this one Negro man as more white than the men with whom he played baseball. Instead of a general human standard of judgment, we were judging the Negro by his fitting into our unconscious habit of assuming white superiority by the white man’s standard of sportsmanship. Later, a Negro graduate of Harvard told me that he had a similar, but stronger prejudice in favor of women with dark brown skin, like his own. He resented very much the claim of white superiority based on skin pigment without considering the larger contribution of individuals to human life and welfare. Accordingly, by the unconscious emotional processes of that resentment, he expressed unconsciously determined emotional and aesthetic value to dark brown skin. Several colored women have shown me a different working of their inferiority-superiority complex from that of the colored men mentioned above. Two of these, by unconscious emotional processes, had given emotional acceptance to the claims of white supremacy. One of these women was proud of her illegitimate child by a white man. The other woman always hoped that her children would be “white.” Several colored women confirmed to me that such feelings were widespread. But again, there were those Negroes who worked on the other side of their inferiority-superiority complex by expressing a strong resentment of race mixture and a corresponding fanaticism for racial purity. Of course, this only duplicated what was often found among Jews and anti-Semites. It was also the psychological duplicate of the processes behind Adolf Hitler’s racial prejudices. Before my sixteenth year, I had some experience with Jewish girls, which registered emotionally into my later years. I lived in a small town not far from Milwaukee where during the summer months, the families of a few Jews would seek recreation. During my early teens, I became acquainted with Jewish girls of my age or a little older. The Jewish features were different from those of the local girls, who were mostly of Nordic origin. These Jewish girls had very black hair, and clear olive skin, and wore prettier clothes than the girls in our village. By comparison, they became my models for girlish beauty and my developing pubescent energies added to the emotional value. If the local girls had become conscious of my preferences, this might have started some anti-Semitic feelings in them. For many years after that, and quite unconsciously, these experiences predisposed me toward Jewish women, especially the black-haired and dark-skinned type. That too was a blind prejudice but one that was favorable to Jewish women. I was aware of that prejudice but did not discover its origin or evil possibilities until I was psychoanalyzed. If jealousy had been added to these prejudices, it might have induced hatred of all male Jews. It also might have led to an unhappy marriage because of its tendency to blind me as to the other personality traits of such women. Later when I went to New York City as a widower at thirty-seven years of age, my unconscious prejudice in favor of Jewish women became pronounced. I did not acquire the 110 conscious corrective of objective standards for appraising various human animals until I submitted myself to psychoanalysis. I have a friend who is a Theosophist and who stresses the brotherhood of mankind, the golden rule, and other similar sentimental phrases without any objective meaning. One day she revealed to me a very deep hatred for Jews. I asked her how she would hold such hatred, consistent with her professed belief in the brotherhood of all mankind. “Oh! That is easy,” she said. “Jews have not yet experienced enough reincarnations to reach that stage of development which makes us human. Therefore, I don’t have to love them. I hate them.” Love is not enough. We must have a larger mutuality of understanding. Nowhere are we taught the significance and superiority of “healthy-mindedness” (a term introduced by William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience), or of psychological maturity. Educators think only of describing the symptoms. Never are we helped to an awareness of our unconscious prejudices. Every educator is ignorant of objectively derived standards for judging the relative social value of human beings, or their psychological personalities. Educators are not mature enough to see the desirability of such standards or to give advice as to the psychological ways and means of outgrowing our illusional childish fears and prejudices. Much remains to be done to make the United States safe for sanity, intelligence, and democratization. Believing that he had been psychoanalyzed, a friend of mine says that whoever has submitted to that discipline ought to be wholly without prejudice. Another tells me that we should be wholly without feeling. Feeling and prejudice are but the manifestation of psychological energy. I too am prejudiced (predisposed) just as certainly as those trees before my window are a product of predisposed seeds One was predisposed in favor of becoming an oak, and the other of becoming a maple. Like nursing babies, some full-grown human animals are very deeply prejudiced in favor of mouth sensations. They suck thumbs, chew gum, smoke cigarettes, and suck pipes. Also, like babies, and some exploiters, they crave much for nothing. Psychological infants crave the guidance of someone like an “infallible” father. Because of this urge very many accept some “infallible, unchangeable and irreformable” authority on etiquette, such as the Prophet, Seer and Revelator of the Mormons, the Caliph of Mohammedans, the Pope of Rome, or Emily Post. I regard the prejudice in favor of any of these “authorities” as being childish. I believe that the only unprejudiced persons are dead; that only the living can have a conflict of prejudices; that only the insane will provoke a war to establish superiority of their habitual prejudices. I too am very much prejudiced—in favor of the use and the fruits of the most mature impulses and intellectual methods of which I can conceive. Secularized Mystics As a result of my studies in religious psychology, I conceive the problem of mysticism to be always essentially one of the psychology of the mystics. That is to say: The differential essence of mysticism is to be found in the relative immaturity of the desires and mental processes, even when accompanied by great erudition and cleverness, as that may be exhibited in the process of intellectualizing and rationalizing the immature fancies and feelings. I conclude that people have not necessarily outgrown the mystical cult. From the psycho-genetic viewpoint, individuals are not to be classified according to their creedal professions, ceremonial performances, or institutional adherence, but according to the psychological how and why of these manifestations. 111 To keep this viewpoint in mind we must remember that one may maintain any creed, either religious or secular, as the result of varying degrees of morbidity, or immaturity. It is the compulsive how and the psycho-genetic why of creed or conduct that now counts, and not the creed or conduct in itself. If we add to this the viewpoint of evolutionary psychology, then this how and why must also be seen in an evolutionary setting. The claimant or proponent of secular and anti-mystical creeds may still be in the throes of an emotional conflict over mysticism. It may be therefore worthwhile to furnish some description of the mystical type of mind when it is functioning in a secularized garb. This will help to clarify the viewpoint and assist in outgrowing the mystical stage of development. One of my college mates became a secular mystic. With significant vehemence, he scouts all religions. His omnipotent idea is a concept of honesty which he has carefully formulated and to which he gives a pathological valuation. As a consequence of this compulsion, he gave up a useful and promising professional career and his family to live nearer to his ideal, and he is doing this mostly on charity. When I tried to encourage him to readjust his habits to harmonize more with the real world of his environment, he retorted that I did not know what reality was like. In response to my request for a definition of reality, he wrote this: A thing is real to us when it corresponds to our idea of what it should be—in other words, when it corresponds to our ideas of what it must be to justify the name given it or what is otherwise and reasoningly to be said of it. This means that a thing is real to me when it corresponds to my idea of what it should be and the picture I draw of it will or will not be real to us depending upon whether or not our ideas of how things ought to be, do or do not agree. Behind all the zeal and strenuosity in these mystical persons is a feeling of inferiority, sometimes desperately seeking an escape, a neutralizer or compensation; that is something to justify a desired feeling, a pose or an action having at least seeming importance, and so giving some little excuse for a balancing feeling of grandeur. At times this feeling of importance is measurably achieved by a blind emotional attachment to leaders or causes, enabling its victim, through association, to shine by a reflected light. These leaders and causes in turn are given an emotional valuation, or over-valuation, equal to that feeling of inferiority that needs neutralizing. Our heroes and our God, our reforms and our Utopias, our heavens or Nirvanas all shed glory upon us as their discoverers or creators. So we are relieved from our depression by the grandeur that we achieve by our reflected light. In the political field, these secular mystics in their fancies build and contend over Utopias, which are quite often unrelated to the orderly evolution of human society, or an adequate understanding of the relation and behavior among things and humans. In their dreams of perfection, they have absolute standards and do not hesitate to act as if without knowing it they were seeking to play the role of omniscience. In these Utopias of their creation, they can reign, either through feeling or phantasies, each by his particular reform, formula as an omnipotent being whose legalized fancy determines the destiny of the human race. Without consciousness that it is so, they quite uniformly act as if they were indeed omnipotent and omniscient. 112 In the practical affairs of social or political organizations, this urge to act like an omnipotent and omniscient being creates the “rule or ruin” attitude of party leaders, in both Church and State. They must crush at any price, every challenge to their omnipotence and without troubling to take serious thought, whether or not the persecuted one has some truth on his side. These secular mystics, madly craving a consciousness of ever greater power, to overcome their morbid fears and feelings of inferiority, are leaders among the would-be warlords of every nation; among their boisterous supporters; among the hyper-patriotic street corner loafers no less than among hysterical drawing-room parasites. Just as a world war and its crude aftermath are the most conspicuous example of secular mysticism, the product of infantilism in action, all religions and theologies may yet come to be viewed collectively as the most conspicuous concurrent exemplification of infantilism in the domain of thought. These creeds and their elaborate rationalizations are mainly the predetermined product of those same immature impulses (desire) that brought upon us the worldwide slaughter and are now preparing the field for another such slaughter in an impending worldwide war of economic classes. All this is because our feelings (as in the case of religion) determine our thinking, with a minimum coordination of any understanding of the relation and behavior among things and humans. When we reach a greater psychic maturity, this relationship or emphasis may appear to be reversed. Since religious activities furnish the oldest and best-organized defense of this archaic mode of feeling and of thinking, it becomes the most important center for its study and for achieving that understanding by which it is to be outgrown. The object to be attained by this is the outgrowing of mystical modes of behavior, especially in the field of the social sciences. In the main the secular mystic is merely demanding a devotional obedience to his law and order, subserving his interests as conceived on the level of some infantile desires. * * * Ever since I submitted myself to psychoanalysis under Dr. White, I had no theory of any final, static, or absolute liberty, or truth. Instead, I believe only in evolving liberty—a psycho-evolutionary process of liberation. I give relative approval to whatever accelerates that natural process of liberation. I claim that this natural process of psycho-evolutionary liberation should be accelerated by our schools and universities, and by our legislators and courts. I also claim that nothing of the sort is being done, or ever has been done, and therefore we have crime, riots, revolutions, and wars. This again sets me apart from practically all other social philosophers. Accordingly, I stood aloof from all organized groups that sponsored debates over specific doctrines or reforms as remedies for any social problems. I was perhaps the only person who held such a peculiar neutrality of a psycho-social science toward all current controversies. 113 Chapter 5 My Life as a Libertarian: 1915-1953 As the previous chapters will attest, my first education occurred between the ages of fifteen and twenty-six when I embarked on my wanderlust years, visiting nearly every state and meeting all varieties of people and nationalities. My second education came after graduating from law school at the University of Wisconsin and moving to Salt Lake City where I built up a law practice and pursued a crusade against the Mormon church. My third education took place in New York City where I started a legal practice but left it to defend free speech and eventually published more in defense of unabridged freedom of speech than all other English authors combined. My fourth education began when I submitted myself to psychoanalysis thereby seeing everything human as a problem of mental health and maturity. When I began my fifth educational experience, I became a specialist in human relations and for many years used my psychological insight to correct our popular theories about human nature, law, criminology, sociology, economics, religion, and education. During this final episode in my life, I began the massive application of my unusual theories with often startling conclusions. For one thing, I deny that “money talks,” or holds any force. The seeming power of money resides only in the morbid greed and fear psychology of crowds. Let us try to understand the oscillation between booms and starvation amid plenty through a study of the oscillations of the “split personalities” between fits of depression and exaltation; and of the conditioning of the reaction of such crowd emotionalisms. Let us study them through their hopes and exaltations into the production of inflationary booms and illusional prosperity; and, with a return of the emotional pendulum, working through an artificial fear psychology, producing synchronized mob depressions, economic panics, and starvation amid plenty. From this point of view, the problem of economics is a problem of mental hygiene and evolutionary psychology; a problem of maturing the impulses and the general development of dogmatic mindedness and its cooperation; and of the democratization of work and welfare for “the economic determination of history,” I would substitute a study of the psychological determinant of our choice of economic theory and practice. For the investigation of “economic laws,” I would substitute a psycho-genetic study of the conditioning of the psychological imperatives behind our choice of economic theories and practices, and a psycho-evolutionary classification of the impulses and intellectual methods of economists and financiers. Every social problem is a problem of human nature—and psychology—a problem of mental hygiene and psychological immaturity. The solution to such problems requires a new kind of education. Pedagogical indoctrination must be supplanted by a discipline to unify and mature the impulses and intellectual methods of learners. Thereby the next generation will outgrow the need for “infallible, unchangeable and irreformable” ideologies or conflicting moral creeds, which are only the rationalizations and intellectual symptoms of “split personalities.” A better social order comes not by a change of social theory but by a maturing of the impulses behind our theories. Our problems are not matters of pure intellect but of immature urges and sick emotions. The chief defect in our education is not a lack of the “right” ideologies but in the intensity of the conflicting emotions behind them. Moral discipline can be the main cause of mental illness. That creates our 114 “split personalities” who are the greater part of our juvenile delinquents, martial misfits, criminals, rioters, revolutionists, warmongers, sadistic exploiters and reformers, most of the inmates of our mental hospitals, and most leaders in education, religion, and politics. All these are “split personalities” developed, in some degree, by our educators. First World War I did not favor our entry into the First World War and voted for the reelection of President Woodrow Wilson because he had kept us out of war during his first administration; and like many gullible voters, I thought he would continue doing so. After it was all over, I read some disclosure which seemed to prove that early in his administration he was already resolved that we must enter it on the side of the Allies. This fraud brought to me a definite and acute conviction that I was too ignorant to vote and that probably our elections are a fraudulent game because we can never know the psychological imperatives behind the emotionally laden metaphors and slogans, the tricky special pleading of candidates, and their still more tricky emotional appeals. Yes! I am too ignorant to do my duty as a voter, and others are too indifferent to allow me to educate them even up to my level. So, my efforts for social betterment were limited to more or less technical magazines. But even that had its compensations. Those few readers to whom I think I had some success will at least understand what I am saying if they read it at all. Some have wondered why I was not sufficiently vocal in showing my disdain for the war. I admit, the issue of free speech did not seem to concern me as much as it perhaps could or should have. I recall receiving a letter from Alexander Berkman, editor of The Blast, a revolutionary labor weekly published in San Francisco. He reported that postal authorities had suppressed it and a large number of other radical papers including The Revolt and L’Allarme in Chicago, Voluntad in New York, and Regeneracion in Los Angeles. He explained that the suppressed papers had neither the means nor the power to make an effective protest and hoped that my Free Speech League might take on the cause. I chose not to accept. Instead, I sent out copies of my book Free Speech for Radicals (1916) to several prominent individuals, including Louis D. Brandeis, who had just been appointed to the U.S. Supreme Court by President Woodrow Wilson. However, as much as I detested the Espionage Act of 1917, I knew that the consequences of my speaking out carried far greater criminal risk than anything I had done in my prior protests. It became clear that Postmaster General Albert S. Burleson was hungry to bring the full force of the government against any undesirable expression against the war. Since the Supreme Court upheld both the Espionage Act and the 1918 Sedition Law despite the dissents of Brandeis and Oliver Wendell Holmes, I turned my attention to the need for a better definition of political crimes and warned that governments should be restricted to judging actions rather than thoughts. Pacifists deserved to have their anti-war expressions protected from retaliation by the State. In January 1918, I wrote President Wilson offering my unique services in place of Secretary of State Elihu Root to represent the nation’s concept of democracy to Russian revolutionaries. As I explained to him, Through fifteen years of free speech activities, I have come into close relations with all kinds of radicals, including some of Mr. Trotsky’s friends. By trying to serve and secure 115 intellectual hospitality for them, I have acquired for myself a sympathetic understanding of all radicalism through this, and some specialization in genetics and evolutionary psychology. I think I know the various radicals much better than they know themselves. Therefore, I feel confident that I can give such a sympathetic understanding to the Russian revolutionist as few detached persons can supply. . . . I consider myself also an expert on the democratic aspects of constitutional history and interpretation. As to my adjustability in the presentation of my viewpoint and message, I point to the unusual diversity in the one hundred periodicals that have published some of my thoughts. I received no reply. Layman’s Psychology In September 1918, I inquired of G. Stanley Hall35 at Clark University if my knowledge of psychology entitled me to membership in the American Psychological Association and also qualified me to teach at a university. Hall replied that I was indeed welcome to join the association. As for teaching at a university, he explained that Freudianism was “very rigorously tabooed in almost all institutions. In the popular mind, it has become so associated with sex that there are not half a dozen institutions in the whole country that even make any pretense of teaching it; nor can I remember a single serious paper ever presented at the meetings of the American Psychological Association on the subject, except my own, and the reception was very chilly.” Here, too, my aspirations were squelched. As a consequence of these disappointments, my energies during the war were focused on my book, Constitutional Free Speech Defined and Defended in an Unfinished Argument in a Case of Blasphemy (1919). In many ways, this was my magnum opus. Over 450 pages long, it was filled with historical examples of cases and opinions of those judged guilty of blasphemy; the arguments that were used to find the defendant guilty; and the arguments used by those who disagreed. I then explained my views regarding psychological determinism in judicial opinions; the intolerance, fear, and suppression of free speech that defined church/state relations in early American history; how the blasphemy laws were at such variance with the verbal meaning of the Constitution; and my plea for an evolutionary concept of the law. By 1920 the Free Speech League was dissolved in deference to the founding of the American Civil Liberties Union and I began spending more of my time reflecting on theories of psychology, writing, lecturing, and practicing lay analysis on individuals like historian Preserved Smith,36 who corresponded by mail. Our visits to New York City continued but with much less frequency. During these years and even though I had no professional degrees in medicine or 35 G. Stanley Hall (1844-1924) was an American psychologist who is regarded as giving impetus to the development of psychology in the United States. Regarded as one of the founders of child psychology and educational psychology, he founded the American Journal of Psychology, the first journal in the country focused on this subject. He helped establish Clark University in Worcester, Massachusetts and played an important part in making experimental psychology into a science. 36 Preserved Smith (1880-1941) was a professor of history at Cornell University and noted principally for his works on the Protestant Reformation. Published The Life and Letters of Martin Luther (1911), The Age of the Reformation (1920), Erasmus: A Study of His Life, Ideals, and Place in History (1923). 116 psychology, I wrote numerous articles for the Psychoanalytic Review, whose editor was Dr. William A. White. I was a maverick who, due to the newness of the discipline and lack of credentialed specialists, found myself with sufficient understanding in the field to have a say, but not for long. As the discipline matured, I was cast aside as a mere layman without a portfolio. Nancy called me a “unique heathen” which I suppose applied to psychology as well. In other words, I stood apart by choosing my path rather than giving way to someone else’s expertise. Perhaps this explains my hostility toward other researchers. Maybe, too, it was my sense of inferiority that made me act out against the experts and caused me to work alone. Exemplary of the difficulties I had in getting my ideas published during these years is a letter I received from Howard G. Warren at Princeton University regarding two manuscripts I submitted to Psychological Review Publications. The first of the two, “Psychological View of the Pragmatic Issue,” Warren considered interesting but urged me to consider reading the standard work on the subject of behavioral psychology by John B. Watson37 to understand the larger picture. As for my second manuscript, “Psychic Aspects of Social Evolution,” he was again very demeaning. “I scarcely know what to suggest regarding the placing of your other article. It struck me on reading it that you were attempting to cover in twenty-one pages a topic that could scarcely be unfolded in 210. The average psychologist is certainly not averse to examining unusual conclusions arrived at by unorthodox methods of approach. But most appear to have some remote Missourian ancestry, and we have to be shown. It seems to me that in your article on Social Evolution, you should at each step cite instances to prove the statements.” The manuscript was eventually published in The Liberal Review in 1917. In it, I explained that modern psychologists have developed new concepts that compel the reinterpretation of social phenomena and theories from the standpoint of genetic and evolutionary psychology. In this manner, we can acquire a synthetic view of such widely divergent theories as socialism and anarchism, with all that is between. From this should come increased efficiency for the adjustment of seemingly conflicting social forces with the natural evolutionary processes. In another instance, an article I submitted to William A. White’s The Psychoanalytic Review was returned with the explanation that the journal “is steadily improving and the amount of material for printing comes in with pretty considerable regularity and that it is getting better and better from a strictly psychoanalytic point of view all the time.” I presume this was a polite way of saying that the journal was now drawing from individuals within the ranks of professional psychoanalysts. J. McVicker Hunt, editor of the Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology was even more direct when he wrote that my article “Is Education Public Enemy No. 1” was “not suitable for publication or review.” As a consequence, I found it necessary to seek out journals and magazines of lesser importance as my avenue to reaching the public. In any case, I spent the bulk of my time in the 1920s touching on the problems of freedom of speech and press and applying psychoanalysis to the topics I chose to write about. It’s not that I meant for every person to undergo psychoanalysis but rather that the method be employed more generally in education so that future generations 37 John Broadus Watson (1878-1958) was an American psychologist who approached the discipline from an experimental basis. As a student of human behavior and its relation to environmental events, he became a major influence on psychology in the 1920s and 1930s. His books Psychology from the Standpoint of a behaviorist (1919), Psychological Care of Infant and Child (1928), and his Behaviorism (1930), provided his definitive statements on his position. 117 would mature more quickly beyond their infantile selfishness toward more healthy-minded regard for themselves and others. Religious humanism was not enough. I had by now outgrown Robert Ingersoll. I now wanted a secularized psychology in place of theology and its different approaches to otherworldliness. Religion From about 1907 until I underwent psychoanalysis late in 1914, I had written a dozen or more articles on religion, sex, and psychology. At the time, much of my knowledge of these matters had been helped along by my experiences with the psycho-sexual abnormalities I found in Mormonism, my later correspondence with Havelock Ellis, and my reading of William James, G. Stanley Hall, and Sigmund Freud. I think it is fair to say that sex instincts are the origin of religion. In other words, the different conceptions of divinity did not in and of themselves engender religious sentiment, but rather the presence of emotions and the awakening of sexual behavior did. I felt that religion was a phenomenon of adolescence and what I attributed to pubescent sexual experiences that played out in objects of worship. In my initial use of the term “erotogenesis of religion,” I brought together the Mormons (excessive sex) and Mother Ann Lee’s Shakers (sexual abstinence) as extreme manifestations of both religious erotic excitement and denial. I will now proceed to summarize my work as a psychologist of religion. So far as possible, I will do this in my language. In this field, as with most other fields of endeavor in which I have worked, I stood quite alone. Practically all specialists in the scientific study of religion are essentially religious psychologists who generally use their intelligence to uphold religious dogma and defend its clergy. I was the lone example of a psychologist of religion who dealt with the problem of the how and the why of people’s beliefs and conduct. I cared little or nothing about what it was that people believed, nor was I concerned even about the truth of their beliefs. However, with unfailing regularity, my explanation of why people adopted this or that creed or ceremonial tended to make it somewhat embarrassing to admit that one was religious or even an enthusiastic moralist. This is so because I almost always reduced mystical religion to a personal sexual origin. It has been said with some color of truth that Ingersoll only made agnosticism respectable while I made the very psychological essence of religion disgraceful. Of course, I never admitted to this. From my viewpoint, the essence of religious experience always had in it a factor of sexual ecstasy, and I do not see anything shameful in sex. For me, all sexual manifestations were to be accepted and understood in the same spirit that we dealt with the lungs or eyes. Early in my research, I saw the necessity of discovering and defining what it was that I investigated. At one time or another, almost everything had been labeled religion. Therefore, I concluded that one must get behind the labels, creeds, and ceremonies to discuss the differential essence of religion. One must distinguish not between a “true” and “false” religion but between that which is and that which is not religious. I concluded that the differential essence of religion is a more or less ecstatic experience that is interpreted as certifying its own transcendental or superhuman origin and the inerrancy of some associated social or religious doctrine, ceremony, or metaphysics. This then was the thing to be investigated. My objective was to arrive at an understanding of this subjective transcendental experience, not in terms of something superhuman or super physical, but in terms of something better understood. Here Mormonism had already furnished me 118 with my first clue as indeed it furnished me with the first stimulus for the whole of my line of research. If the psycho-genetics of Mormonism could be legitimately generalized, then the essence of the religious impulse is the sex impulse with some of its needs, its ecstasies, its phantasies, or all of these, misinterpreted in terms of the individual. Yet very often these experiences are not understood to be sexual because the physical factors are emotionally inhibited from consciousness and disguised in psychological symbols as Freudian psychologists call it. At first, I imagined that I had made a discovery. Accordingly, I set out boldly to justify this vanity. But here I was doomed to be disappointed for I soon found that many observers had ventured similar opinions. However, these earlier advocates of sexuality in religion seldom, if ever, ventured a broad general statement on the subject. The early alienists frequently discovered a sexual factor in the religion of the insane. However, these observers commonly assumed that this sexual factor belonged only to the religions of the most primitive people or to those who were insane. Relying upon my observations of Mormons, I ventured the hypothesis that the sexual factor was an equally important determinant in the religious experiences of relatively normal persons. Thus from the observations of others, combined with my own, I reached the hypothesis that the mystical experience is merely a psychological state controlled by sexual causes but wrongly ascribed to some occult, supernatural, or divine cause. Having thus established my working hypothesis, I prepared myself by further study to verify, modify, discredit, correct, and amplify it. Everywhere that I searched, I seemed to find some confirmation. Later, when I studied psychoanalytic techniques and theories, it became apparent to me that mere book study of religious mystics and religiously abnormal persons was inadequate. Instead, I found it necessary to discover living subjects who would submit to examination and observation at close range. So, I went into the highways and byways of the great cities and countryside hunting for unique religious persons who would submit to being studied. Little by little, I perfected my mental picture of how the human energy behaved in the process of creating its testimony for God, for the transcendental, for the experience of universal love or the infinite, or whatever name it was called. With the enlightenment thus attained, I provided a psychoanalytic interpretation of some of the most orthodox religious experiences. Of course, it is always easy and usually most instructive to study those persons who are relatively abnormal and very heretical. As a rule, they are the most willing to talk and leave records of their acts, their phantasies, and their thoughts. It so happens that my essays were mostly studies of cases that may fairly be classified as abnormal. Very naturally this brought the retort that I was dealing only with the religion of the abnormal and that therefore my work was of no consequence to the religious experiences of more normal and relatively healthy Christians. On the contrary, I thought that the best place to study psychology was among the so-called abnormal individuals because there we can observe normal mental mechanisms in exaggerated form and in bolder relief. Harvard Theological Review In 1931, I wrote the editors of the Harvard Theological Review encouraging them to publish a new type of religious debate. I explained that the change was necessary because of the frequent statements of harmony between religion and science that ignored the existence of a large body of opinions being developed among genetic psychologists. For this reason, I felt that the 119 editors should use their journals to inform the clergy of this fact. I further explained to the editors that I was a genetic and agnostic psychologist which meant that I had an attitude toward religious controversy very different from that of older agnostics like Spencer, Huxley, and Ingersoll. When I think in terms of psychology, there is no general issue between religion and science. Instead, I am more concerned with appraising the religious temperament and its intellectual methods than I am with creeds. I examine the influence of institutionalized religion on mental hygiene, rather than the truth of its metaphysics or theology. As a result, I approach the problem from the standpoint that religiosity, not theology, is the enemy; that all religious-moral valuations are merely psycho-neurotic symptoms; that the “golden rule” is the most pernicious of all the moral superstitions; that institutionalized religiosity is always a hindrance to the better mental hygiene, and a hindrance to the maturing of our intellectual methods; that society’s democratization is the most fundamental condition of human progress; and that varying degrees of religiosity imply similar degrees of psycho-sexual pathology. Therefore, religiosity is without one single commendable feature. All these propositions have been defended by me in technical and free thought journals. It was important, therefore, that the clergy and educated laymen be acquainted with this newer viewpoint. I explained that the great mass of readers, like infants, think only through and for their feelings, instead of envisaging nature’s processes. Accordingly, they quarrel only about differences in the acquired meaning of words, rather than the behavior of things and human emotions. I proposed that the editors offer me the opportunity to present my views through a series of articles. Instead, they gave me no encouragement, explaining that I had misunderstood the intent of their journal. Judges The elaborate political machinery constructed to protect all of us in the most important human liberties is contained in the Constitution’s revered Bill of Rights. Because of its common-sense language, we are all led to believe that we know the plain meaning of those rights which of course should be the same for all of us. Chief among these rights and most fundamental according to my understanding are the guarantees for unabridged freedom of speech and of the press. Hence, I set about to clarify and apply the constitutional guarantees for 100% of intellectual liberty which had been falsely taught but otherwise loved by everybody. Educated as a lawyer and actively engaged in the practice for about a dozen years, I was led to believe that the law was the very essence and perfection of reason and that judges and legislators were reasoning animals. Of course, all other humans were likewise assumed to be reasoning animals for only on this assumption could they be qualified to choose those among their number who were the most expert at right reasoning, and induce them to preside as our judges and function as legislators. I had been educated to believe that, if only I brought this research and its inevitable conclusion to the public’s attention, every intelligent person would see the point and proclaim me a wise friend of mankind; that the judges of our courts would show an open-minded generous appreciation of my intellectual labors, and would seriously consider all the rediscovered fruits of my painstaking, time-consuming research. How wrong I was in believing that. Since much of our modern censorship hinges around problems of sex and morality, I made a special investigation to help the courts understand the psychological problems involved in the 120 matter of judging the mental and moral influence of so-called “obscenity.” Here, especially, I was delving into a new realm which legislators and judges could not be supposed to have made the subject of special concern and therefore I might presume that they would be grateful. If now I could coordinate such unusual data with the historical meaning of our constitutional guarantees for intellectual freedom, I would surely be rendering our legislatures and judges a valuable and appreciated service. Despite my research, I ignorantly believed that judges have an open mind and are eager to avail themselves of every sincere effort to furnish illumination. As I now view it, nothing could be farther from the truth. What then was wrong with me and my arguments? It was folly for me to believe that judges and legislators were devoted to upholding the Constitution as it was written, and with the historical meaning of human experience as that filtered through the minds of those who framed our guarantees of liberty. I now believe that our various state constitutions were used to furnish justification for satisfying the will to power of politicians and other victims of childish compulsions. Since these years of my monumental folly, I have been studying genetic and evolutionary psychology. Now I know better. Humans, generally speaking, are not reasonable animals at all. There is no such being as an unprejudiced human. Practically all thought and talk of such unprejudiced claims are but vain prattle. Instead of seeking an unprejudiced legislator or judge, we should be inquiring at what evolutionary level the mental processes the prejudices of the judges and legislators formed. At what level of morbid intensity are prejudices held by any person? From this viewpoint, we see that with very rare exceptions, judicial opinions are mere special pleas, so framed that the emotional crowd can adjudge them plausible justifications for its popular ignorance. I see every personal and social problem as being in large part a problem of mental hygiene and psychological immaturity. The remedy always comes down to education and the further maturing of the impulses and the intellectual methods that make themselves effective in action and thought. The application of this new approach to all sorts of problems has produced surprising results. All this was made inevitable by my unusual juvenile experiences. I am now convinced that even among scientists who have reached the stage of development where they seriously question the infallibility of their predispositions, they lack the means to check and correct their prejudices which are too often working below the surface of consciousness. This is especially true when dealing with social problems. The maturity of intellectual methods has not yet manifested itself. There is no evidence that judges or moral reformers have made or care to make themselves acquainted with the influence of the subconscious determinants of their prejudices and those acts revealed by genetic psychologists. Where the great fundamental problems of human liberty are concerned most of the juridical utterances are but the rationalization of immature desires using childish mental processes, all serving as a convenient mask, or neutralizer, for a painful though often unconscious feeling, past or present, of inadequacy. Sometimes all this is made quite imposing. Since the words a judge makes are the tools he uses to make his desires effective, it is important to know the psychology of the judge. From a psychological viewpoint, a judge’s decision is determined by the relative emotional maturity of his desires and intellectual development. Mathematical methods are scientific, but the methods used to arrive at legal decisions are crude and unscientific. Not only does the judge’s ego enter into his judgment but in the majority of cases, the judge is unaware of 121 that bias. Allowing prior impulses into the problem will result in distortions, perversions, and ignorance. But it cannot enlighten, much less convince those of contrary opinions. Old precedents are often misapplied and distorted. Neither can such decisions command the respect of those who are aware of the differences between mature and immature intellectual processes. “Know yourself.” That is my advice to everyone who sits or aspires to sit on the judicial bench. Know yourself, for only then can you render just decisions. Know yourself because only when you have been thoroughly psychoanalyzed will you be fit to render decisions that deserve to be called scientific. In a pamphlet titled which I privately printed in 1917 in New York for the Friends of Free Speech, I noted that in this country psychologists lecture detectives on the uncovering of criminals and the manufacture of evidence but they do not apply the same analytic psychology for detecting the impulses determining judicial decisions. This is even though judicial decisions are controlled like other human acts by a chain of causation running back to the earliest infancy. Judicial acts are expressive of emotional tones or values, and emotional associations acquired from past experiences. I think that a time will come when no man will be considered fit for the judicial bench who has not first submitted himself to an expert psychoanalyst to learn the source and behavior of every impulse at work within him. Every prosecution is something more than a mere trial of the accused. In the course of the prosecution, the obvious factors of the trial are seen in the interaction with the character of the judge. The judge also is always on trial. In the interplay of human motives, the choices, even unconsciously expressed in the rulings of the court, necessarily reveal as much of the character of the judge, as of the prisoner at the bar. Usually, the written opinion is little more than a special plea made in defense of impulses that are largely unconscious, at least, so far as concerns their origin or the immediate power of past experiences. In the sense of evolutionary psychology, the judge’s intellectual maturity is not determined by his memory of precedents, ancient or modern, but rather by the extent to which he habitually checks his infantile lust for power by more or less conscious and efficient coordination, of varying extents of the remote and obscure factors in the objective realities of his problem. Every judicial opinion necessarily reveals a variety of choices. There is a choice of materials from that offered in evidence, as well as among possible precedents and arguments. A choice is made in that which is approved as well as that which is ignored, or expressly disapproved. There is a choice of material brought in by the judge and not a matter of record. There is a choice in all that is emphasized, slighted, or distorted. Every choice is a fragment of autobiography because it reveals not only the present conscious motive, but also the still potent, past, and immature experiential causes, which determined the unconscious impulses submerged in but controlling the avowed motive. To the extent to which we become familiar with psychic evolution, and with mental mechanisms in general, we can efficiently and genetically analyze the manifest desires expressed in the final opinion. By such methods, the psychoanalyst comes to see that which is concealed from the ordinary observer and which is often operating from the subconscious, though determining the immediate conscious action. In other words, this is only applying a scientific efficiency toward the genetic understanding of human nature as developed and revealed in the judge. If the judge is momentarily unconscious of these past experiences and their present influences, probably this is so because he had some unhappy conflict about them at the time, which conflict made it pleasant for him to 122 exclude these experiences from consciousness and memory. That is to say, he is happier in forgetting the painful aspects of those experiences and perhaps the experiences themselves. Therefore, they are quite permanently excluded from consciousness and are forgotten. Even when such a person is perfectly conscious of the desire to conceal his past the accompanying anxiety will always betray him. So long as it exists, this emotional fear will show itself by compelling an over-emphasis on the relatively unimportant matter behind which he seeks to screen himself. Because of the intensity of the anxiety that exists as suppressed energy, he is unable to treat all the persons, the evidence, or the argument, with equal candor, equal calm, or equal fullness and fairness, according to objective standards. When we see what is avoided, slighted, or emphasized we already see the submerged personality unconsciously revealing itself. From a very considerable study of the subject, I am inclined to the opinion that right here and now in these States of North America, we have a greater variety of penalized opinions than in any country at any time in the history of the world. My arguments and research were frequently brought to the attention of legislators and courts. Did they welcome my efforts and my new material as an aid to clearer and more mature thinking? Never! Did they give any sign that these newer arguments and unusual data had even in the least influenced their judgment? Not at all! Did they, in expressing any dissent from my conclusions, or in reaffirming the doctrines of freedom as announced by the minions of tyrants of divine right, deign to show the error of my reasoning in comparison with their perfection of reason? Of course not!! The presentation of my material was never even admitted, much less considered. Those who may read the judicial opinions in the cases where my research and arguments were used would never suspect that anything but stale and discredited precedents had been called to the attention of the court. All the products of years of research, which could have delighted an open mind, even though they failed to produce new convictions, were completely ignored as if they did not exist. It is easier for judges to pretend that they have nothing new called to their attention and to reaffirm antique precedents than it is to face the facts and show their perfection of reason by the more intelligent use of modern knowledge. I discovered that the perfection of reason consisted of an accumulation of antique erudition used in support of immature impulses and childish preconceptions. By contrast, policemen have had the good fortune to escape from the standardizing influence of our higher institutions of learning, but it is a mistake to assume they show more intelligence than our judges. By other methods, they, too, have gotten their ignorance properly and conventionally standardized. Accordingly, when I advertised to deliver free lectures on the historical interpretation of our constitutional guarantees of free speech, the managers of these lecture halls were threatened with arrest, or with having their licenses canceled. At still other times, policemen were sent to bar the entrance of a hall to keep me as well as my audience outside. What did the prosecutors’ and lawyers’ associations and courts do about it? Oh—they just laughed, just as I imagine the late Tsar laughed under similar circumstances before the Russian Revolution. What else could educated gentlemen do for their country to promote human liberty but to laugh at anyone who took their constitutional guarantees seriously? Judicial Dogmatism on Freedom of the Press 123 If we may determine the intellectual bankruptcy of our American judges by their utter incapacity for using logical processes in the presence of slight emotional irritation, then I fear that our courts must be adjudged to have assumed obligations largely above their intellectual resources. This is a sweeping and a terrible indictment; but, is it true? To me, it seems to be true, and largely upon the record made by the courts in their dogmatizing concerning "freedom of the press." Where the constitutional guarantee of "freedom of speech and of the press" is involved before a court, unless the judge's emotions and unreasoned sentimentalism determined his "construction" of the constitution, he would find the constitutional meaning in the actual words of that instrument, from which the court would deduce a criterion of "freedom" for application to and decision of the case before it and all others as well. Not in a single case has this rational method ever been attempted. Instead, the courts have drawn on their "inner consciousness," and by consulting only their temporary emotions have determined what, according to their feeling- convictions, the Constitution ought to be, and then dogmatically decreed this, their will, to be the true intent and meaning of the Constitution, that is, they made their wish to be the Constitution itself. But my critics will say that maybe "freedom of speech" is so vague a phrase as not to permit the above method of interpretation and therefore the courts should not be criticized for having failed to use it. In the first place, I do not believe the phrase in question to be so vague as to justify any other method of constitutional construction. Neither do the courts believe it. At any rate, not one court has ever attempted to deduce a meaning—a criterion of freedom of the press—from the words of the constitution, and thereupon decided that it couldn't be done; and, what is more important, no court has ever pursued the only rational alternative, which presents itself when the constitutional language leaves the matter in doubt. What is that alternative? If the constitutional phrase "freedom of the press," does not in and of itself furnish the criteria of permissibility in intellectual output, the court should have said so and accordingly pursued the historical method of interpretation. By the historical or scientific method, as applied to this problem, I understand a mode of research into our juridical history that will discover those controversies over "freedom of speech and of the press" that had occurred before our constitution, and which issues it was intended that our constitutions should settle forever. Furthermore, a moderately well-trained mind would not stop at a mere superficial view of these past contests. It is not enough to learn that at one time the abridgment of free utterance was concerned with religion; at a second with the divine right of kings; at a third with the abolition of a censor; at a fourth with the penalizing of speech without reference to or the existence of a censor; and at a fifth that it involved the right to denounce usury, etc., etc. I hold that a lawyer whose intellectual attainments are such as to make him a scientist of the law, would not content himself with the superficial view or tabulation of these controversies which thus present so varied an aspect, and then conclude that such and only such particular abridgment was involved in the past issues, and only its recurrence precluded by our constitutionally guaranteed unbridgeable freedom of utterance. That is the method of those afflicted with arrested intellectual development. In contrast to this, the scientifically cultivated mind will examine all these particular incidents and issues of the past abridgment of utterance, to discover the fundamental elements common to them all, though imperfectly seen and crudely expressed by the controversialists of those times. These elements, common to all these controversies, the legal scientist will generalize into principles that furnish the criteria of freedom and therein find the true meaning of our constitutional guarantee of unabridged freedom of 124 utterance. Although the opportunity and the duty to do this has often presented itself to our courts, seemingly no judge has ever been able to see it. Even in the few cases where the courts have sustained the contention in favor of freedom of utterance, the same defective intellectual methods were used. The courts drew on their "inner consciousness," dogmatized, and made arguments showing what the Constitution ought to be, rather than analyzing it for what it is. In the face of this fact, may we not assert the intellectual bankruptcy of our judiciary? I said that no court had ever pursued the historical or scientific method of inquiry as to what was meant by an unabridged freedom of utterance. They have done something much worse than merely neglect it. In their blind unintelligent groping for something tangible upon which to rest their emotional aversion to freedom of utterance, they adopted the pre-revolutionary declarations of English authorities, who (like many American Judges) were all passionately opposed to freedom of criticism of established opinions, and whose utterances only declared the existing practice under a system which permitted abridgment, and thus made freedom to speak only a freedom by permission, with admitted the power to withhold that permission if considered necessary. Under the influence of the emotional aversion to free speech, our judges were usually unable to see the difference between the English practice of a bridgeable freedom by permission, where only expediency tempers tyranny, and the American principle of unbridgeable freedom of utterance which was guaranteed as a matter of right to be maintained despite all considerations of expediency to the contrary. I say, that our courts have uniformly lacked the intellectual capacity to see this difference, and so were blindly led into following the English authorities which were uniformly opposed to freedom of utterance. By adopting their statement of what the English practice was and erroneously mistaking that mere fact of practice for a declaration of human rights and of constitutional principles, our American courts have dogmatically amended our constitutional guarantees, to reduce liberty in this respect to just what it was in England before the time of the American Revolution. Under our constitutions, as thus judicially amended, any legislature despite the constitution as it originally was written, may abridge freedom of speech and press in any respect in which it and the judges who determine what is constitutional shall concur in approving, and declare to be in the interest of the public welfare. These are serious charges to bring against our courts and are not to be accepted on my mere assurance that I believe them to be true. I fear it would be no more satisfactory if I contented myself with merely citing the cases which have brought me to this conclusion because no one would take the time and trouble to examine them. It follows that if I would convince anyone, I must reproduce the essential portion of all these judicial opinions. To do this will require much space, but that cannot be avoided. I also regret very much that space limits will not allow me to comment separately on each specific utterance which I shall quote, and thus aid the sluggish mind in applying the foregoing standards of judgment to the decisions rendered. However, since this cannot be done, I can only request the reader to keep definitely in mind what I have said above as to the proper method of judicial interpretation, and in the light of the standards thus erected to read the following liberty-destroying judicial dogmatism of the most pernicious and most inexcusable sort. What follows includes all the quotable and material portions of the reported judicial utterances as to the meaning of "freedom of speech and the press" which my research has disclosed to me. 125 Sex and Censorship Those who are the most influenced by the popular moral hysteria over sex, find it the most difficult to hold their attention away from it. To the degree that our sexual taboos impress the young with fear and shame over their own quite healthy sexual nature, the more they will be compelled to lie about it. So it is that morbid Puritans help to create both a morbid concentration upon sex, with its inevitable increase of sexual irregularities, and at the same time intensify the need for becoming a hypocrite and a liar. The more ashamed we are of our sexual unconventionalities, the more ostentatious and enthusiastic will be our probable protestation of morality. All our institutionalized morality now becomes devoted to the cure of conditions that are mainly of its creation. Those who become mentally the most disturbed and obsessed over their sex problem have a greater need for a moralistic smoke screen. They project their obsessions onto the canvas of the outer world and then denounce that self-projection as if it were the operation of Satan through and within others, and as if by such a self-projection they could avert suspicion from themselves. These quite often become the most enthusiastic supporters of moralists in and out of the orthodox churches. On the one hand, there is the organically healthy biological urge for the physiological expression of the sexual drive. On the other side is the potent desire to live in harmony with the expectation of elders, supported by the thunders and threats of hellfire, which emanate largely from our hysterical moralists for revenue. The adolescent cannot satisfy both of these irreconcilable demands. Accordingly, the internal conflict of emotions grows in intensity and the victim becomes ever more perplexed. Fortunate it is for mental hygiene, that some still live their childhood lives sufficiently removed from the ethical valuations of our hysterical moralists, and therefore remain relatively uninfluenced by the suggestive and imitative tendency of their morbid intensities. From this excessive emotionalism of the internal conflict over the sex impulse, many are forced to an undue concentration of attention upon sex. So begins our popular sexual hypocrisy Often it develops into quite honest self-deception, if the physiological aspects of sex can be almost excluded from consciousness. Now our moral theories will be as extravagantly valued as the intensity of the lewdness and shame which they conceal. If lawyers or judges had combined healthy mindedness, with some psychological intelligence, they would long ago have discovered that they were no longer able to consider the issue of obscenity, as one of art, morals, or religion. Under such circumstances, they might have inquired if all these smoke screens were not merely symptoms of Puritan psycho-pathology. In that event, it might be concluded that obscenity exists exclusively in the viewing or reading of the mind, and never is a quality of the thing read or viewed. Then perhaps the alleged potency for evil is never a quality of the objectionable object. But the legal consequences of such a scientific conclusion are too terrible for the psycho-neurotic leaders of our moron civilization to contemplate. Heavenly Bridesmaids In the course of my studies on the erotogenesis of religion, I became interested in the life, work, and mental characteristics of the psycho-sexual religious visionary Ida Celanire Craddock. Born in 1857 in Philadelphia, she was home-schooled until grades 9 through 12 when she enrolled 126 at a nearby Quaker school. At age nineteen, she graduated with a strong grounding in the origin and philosophy of religion and a rigorous preparatory college education taught in an environment emphasizing intellectual growth and exploration. As a young middle-class woman of education and culture, she had a working knowledge of Greek, Latin, French, German, and Italian; wrote short pieces of fiction; and published a textbook on phonetic shorthand which was the product of her teaching phonography at Girard College, a preparatory boarding school endowed by philanthropist Stephen Girard. Encouraged by her success, Miss Craddock tried to matriculate at the University of Pennsylvania in 1882, only to be rejected three times. Disappointed, and suffering from a toxic relationship with her mother, she moved back and forth between San Francisco, Chicago, Washington D.C., Philadelphia, New York, and London, during which time she became enamored with New Thought, Divine Science, Spiritualism, Theosophy, Yoga, the ideals of freedom, private judgment, and sexual emancipation. For a time, she served as secretary for the radical American Secular Union which was researching phallic worship and the sexual roots of religion. An advocate for marital reform, including the Karezza method38 that stressed intimacy through touching, and John Humphrey Noyes’s practice of coitus reservatus,39 she took up lecturing and writing about the “health” of marriage; offered individual and group counseling for single and married couples; and stressed the importance of sexual satisfaction for both the male and female during intercourse. Like Freud, Craddock was strongly convinced that the clitoris was not the proper organ for an orgasm; it was all right to start there but only momentarily. The proper place was the vagina. She wrote several pamphlets including Right Marital Living, Helps to Happy Wedlock, Advice to a Bridegroom, and Wedding Night—all of which emphasized antipathy toward the masturbatory nature of clitoral stimulation and orgasm (albeit without the emission of semen) through vaginal intercourse, and what amounted to a ménage à trois with God as the third participant in in the sexual act. With every union with my husband and with God as his third partner, I feel more and more that it is the only right way to have sexual intercourse—making God the third partner, physically, mentally, spiritually, and in a feeling of benevolent good-will toward God, and 38 The Karezza method, which is intended to deepen the sexual and emotional relationship of two parties, replaces the sexual climax with a spiritual connection which consists of intercourse with the male practicing coitus reservatus while encouraging the female to still have them. The method was widely spread through Alice Stockham’s Karezza: The Ethics of Marriage (1903). 39 Coitus reservatus, also known as sexual continence, implied withholding ejaculation during intercourse. This method was advocated for the male population of the Oneida Community of John Humphrey Noyes. Figure 9: Ida Craddock 127 an honest desire to share with him one’s pleasure, for his delight and the good of the whole universe. I frequently, during union, ask God to penetrate me through my husband’s organ, so that we three may be one. Then, remembering that God is also feminine as well as masculine, I ask him to unite through me with my husband, so that my husband also may enjoy God from his side, as I do from mine. And then I ask God to enjoy the act with us and thro’ us. And then, lest it become merely sensual, I exalt my thought to the spiritual plane, while, at the same time, I continue to perform my part as above, upon the physical plane, in the physical partnership of three. Pursued by Anthony Comstock for using the mail to distribute her pamphlets and flyers as well as correspondence with patients, she managed to avoid incarceration by moving frequently and working out plea deals, one of which was facilitated pro bono by Clarence Darrow. Nevertheless, she was arrested at her office at 134 West 23rd Street in New York City in March 1902 for selling The Wedding Night to an undercover detective. Although Mrs. Craddock described her book as advice for the best means of consummating the marriage, Comstock denounced it as "the science of seduction." The judge who denounced the author called it “indescribably obscene." To one who, from diseased sex-sensitiveness, is incapable of reading a discussion of sex functioning with the same equanimity as would accompany a discussion of lung functioning, or to one who would apply the absurd judicial "tests " of obscenity, this booklet appeared just as these men described it. Of course, she was found guilty. At the time, Craddock identified herself as a writer, teacher, freethinker, spiritualist, and sex researcher, offering personal instruction and advice on Marriage, Parenthood, Pre-Natal Culture, the Science and Art of Self Control, and Yoga. Convicted by a three-judge panel, she was jailed for three months at the Woman’s Workhouse on Blackwell’s Island on the city’s East River. When released from prison, the Free Speech League gave a gala dinner in her honor. Craddock’s legal predicament continued until Comstock took his fight to federal court. Judge Edward B. Thomas, who viewed Craddock in much the same way as Comstock, gave his instructions to the jury in such a manner that it had little choice but to provide a guilty verdict. A day before Ida Craddock’s sentencing date of October 17 for which she was scheduled to be given a five-year prison sentence, she committed suicide. She was forty-five years of age when she cut her wrists and breathed in gas from the grate in her small office. Admittedly, I took little interest in Craddock’s court battles and her claim to free speech. That was not what attracted me to her situation. Instead, it was using my psycho-sexual theory of religion’s origins and featuring her work on heavenly bridegrooms. Craddock not only had an angel lover, “Soph,” but in the ecstasy of their spiritualized sexual encounters, she had come to believe, like Emanuel Swedenborg’s angelic friends, that “Soph” was real and existed in another plane of matter outside the ability of most people to see or hear. Yet, in her dream life, these experiences became real enough to insist that she was no longer “Miss” Craddock but now “Mrs.” Craddock. Before her death, Craddock had corresponded with Dr. Edward Bliss Foote of New York who marketed contraceptives and fought the Comstock laws. It was he who first informed me of her issues. Her life, which manifested a religiously suppressed sexuality, provided me with the 128 opportunity to build a more complete eroto-genetic understanding of sexual development. Although she had been a patient for three months at the Pennsylvania Hospital for the Insane (June 16-September 7, 1898), Miss Craddock was never adjudged legally insane by a court. According to Dr. Owen Copp, she suffered from a chronic form of mental imbalance that had existed six years before her admission. From my point of view, however, it was her Puritan upbringing and intense moralistic conflicts that brought her ultimately into mental hospitals and five jails. I decided to examine her life based on her religiosity, the fact that she had never married, and because of her sexual hallucinations to which she gave a spiritual interpretation. When I started collecting materials on her in 1906, I learned that most of her manuscripts were in the hands of William T. Stead,40 editor of Borderland and Review of Reviews. He had been among her most stalwart defenders and refused my entreaties to share her writings. When Stead died on board the Titanic in 1912, her papers were given to his daughter Estelle who, after World War I, gave them to me. Among the materials are her correspondence with friends, some published essays written by her, and two completed but unpublished book manuscripts, including Heavenly Bridegrooms for which I prepared an introduction and published in 1918. These materials constituted the subject of my analysis. I originally published Craddock’s Heavenly Bridegroom serially in the Alienist and Neurologist and then published the entire work myself without comment, believing that she was sufficiently transparent in her explanations to have her beliefs stand alone. In the preface of Heavenly Bridegrooms Craddock explained that she wrote the book with the intent of exploring the pathway of communication with the Borderland, a spiritual universe near planet Earth and peopled by the spirits of those who passed, and of her relations with “Soph,” her spiritual husband. As she explained, such spiritual unions existed in former times, including the union between Mary, an earthly woman, and her heavenly bridegroom who was God himself. In this regard, Craddock saw herself as sharing with Mary the glorious possibilities of Borderland. The same occurred when women who entered a convent pledged themselves to a mystic union with their heavenly bridegroom denominated as Christ—a union that for many became objectively real. In making her claim that Jesus was a “Borderland child,” Craddock appealed to Spiritualists like Alfred Russel Wallace41 and Laurence Oliphant,42 claiming that there were many heavenly bridegrooms besides Christ. There were angelic husbands mentioned in the Book of Enoch, in Jude, and in other 40 William Thomas Stead (1849-1912) was a British journalist, editor, and publisher. Founded Review of Reviews, and used the pages of the journals he edited (i.e., Pall Mall Gazette) to support British-Russian relations, end child prostitution, advance international peace, and support spiritualism. After visiting Chicago during the Columbian Exposition of 1894, he published If Christ Came to Chicago! A Plea for the Union of All Who Love in the Service of All Who Suffer (1894). 41 Alfred Russel Wallace (1823-1913) was co-originator with Charles Darwin of the theory of evolution by natural selection. His interests ranged from socialism to spiritualism, life on Mars, and land nationalization. Published 21 books including the two-volume The Malay Archipelago (1869), On Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (1875), two-volume Geographical Distribution of Animals (1876), and Island Life (1880), Darwinism (1889), My Life: Aa Record of Events and Opinions (1905) 42 Laurence Oliphant (1829-1888) was a British author and mystic who, with his mother, joined the community of spiritualist T. L. Harris’s Brotherhood of the New Life in Amenia and then at Brocton, New York. Supported the establishment of a Jewish state in Palestine and authored Journey to Khatmandu (1852), Piccadilly: A Fragment of Contemporary Biography (1865), Sympneumata; Or, Evolutionary Forces Now Active in Man (1885), and Altiora Peto (1883). 129 apocalyptic literature. There were also more recent cases collected and identified by the Society for Psychical Research43 in London. As Craddock explained, it was contrary to Borderland laws that an angelic lover should force himself on an earthly bride. Instead, marital unions in the Borderland followed the highest standards of social and ethical duty. From the Rosicrucians,44 she learned that gentle maidens who went to bed alone often awoke in the night and found men more beautiful than Apollo lying with them, but who immediately became invisible when an alarm was raised. The Church, of course, being the conservator of useless things of the past, clung to the belief that it was witchcraft, and considered such experiences congressus com daemonius. I found in Craddock a perfect example of my erotogenic theory. She was a mystic who believed she was the bride of an angel and thus connected with the Holy Ghost and Jesus Christ. Her Heavenly Bridegrooms was an exemplary piece of spiritual ecstasy. As a strong advocate of the remarkable sensitiveness possible in psychometry, a pseudo-science discovered by Joseph Rodes Buchanan,45 supposedly gave one the ability to discover facts about an event or person by touching inanimate objects belonging to or associated with them. She urged its application in understanding the effects of caressing touches produced by the angelic bridegroom and his earthly partner. For several years after my interest in Craddock, I became a psychoanalyst by mail for several women seeking what I can only describe as a sort of father figure as they strove to address their relationship with both sex and religion. In 1918, I published a bibliography titled List of References on Birth Control to offset what I believed was the functioning of most people at immature levels of development. It seems that the entire subject of reproduction was so thoroughly submerged in the conflicts of immature and morbid emotions that even among the most scientifically educated men there remained blind moral sentimentalism against any open-minded understanding of sexual problems. My bibliography provided the reader with citations from religious, secular, progressive, and reactionary moralists, dispassionate medievalists, and hysterical modernists. I did not attempt to discriminate between or among the various purposes of their authors. The other booklet was by Dr. Alice Stockham,46 the well-known author of Tokology and similar books, and in name and substance, I believe, it was very much like the Craddock book. Nevertheless, a Post Office inspector pronounced it the obscenest book he had ever read and Stockham was convicted and heavily fined, though with many friends she vigorously defended the propriety and necessity of her booklet of instructions. Of course, neither of these books, nor any like them, are now anywhere to be had. 43 Society for Psychical Research (SPR) was founded in 1882 to study Thought-transference, Mesmerism, Mediumship, Reichenbach Phenomena (Odic Force), Apparitions, Haunted Houses, and Séances. 44 Rosicrucians are a worldwide community of philosophers whose studies include human and cosmic consciousness, mysticism, spiritual alchemy, occultism, Hermeticism, Christian Gnosticism, time and space, and esoteric wisdom handed down from ancient times. 45 Joseph Rodes Buchanan (1814-1899) was an American physician, dean of the Eclectic Medical Institute in Cincinnati, experimented in Mesmerism and Spiritualism, developed ‘science’ of psychometry and sarcognomy. Published and edited Journal of Man, and authored Manual of Psychometry (1889), Primitive Christianity (1897). 46 Alice Bunker Stockham (1833-1912) was a homeopathic medical doctor who specialized in pediatrics and women’s health and sexuality. Formed publishing house and published several books and pamphlets, including Tokology; A Book for Every Woman (1883). Launched a New Thought School in 1897. Her books were banned under the Comstock Law. 130 Conjugal Love The next book is not a medical book in any sense, and yet marks a sort of transition state toward the more scientific discussion of sex problems. I am referring to one of the best-known books of that conspicuous philosopher and dreamer, Emanuel Swedenborg.47 Of course, this book was written about a century and a half ago. The Swedenborg Society of London was organized in 1810, since which time it has been promoting the circulation of the more important works of Swedenborg. The English rendition of "Conjugal Love" has been on the market for over half a century. In the year 1909, in the City of Philadelphia, a magistrate judicially declared it to be obscene. Thus again, not only was an "obscene" book suppressed, but also its sect was discredited. Mrs. Carrie Nation Most of the literature intended to promote personal purity is so veiled in a fog of verbiage as to be utterly meaningless to the young because they lack the intelligence that alone could make it possible to translate the innuendoes into the mental pictures that the words are supposed to symbolize. Recently Mrs. Carrie Nation48 published some wholesome advice for small boys. She used scientifically chaste English and took the trouble to define the meaning of her words. She wrote plainly so that boys might understand what she was trying to teach them. She wrote with greater plainness than some of those books which have been adjudged criminally obscene. Not surprisingly, a warrant was issued for her arrest in Oklahoma for sending obscene matter through the mail. She being then in Texas on a lecture tour, was arrested and taken to Dallas before a U. S. Commissioner. Fortunately, she found there a U. S. Attorney with some sense, who, though he did not approve of her taste, consented to the discharge of the prisoner. Mrs. Nation is to be congratulated upon having discovered one spot in this country not dominated by the prurient prudery of New England and New York. Unfortunately, none can know when or where another healthy-minded prosecutor will be found. However, the postal authorities will still exclude the article from the mail. Bible Declared Obscene One of the early American prosecutions of note was that of the distinguished eccentric, George Francis Train,49 in 1872. He was arrested for circulating obscenity, which it turned out consisted of quotations from the Bible. Train and his attorneys sought to have him released because the matter was not obscene and demanded a decision on that issue. The prosecutor, in his 47 Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772) was a theologian, scientist, philosopher, and mystic whose works include The Soul or Rational Psychology (1742), the three-volume Animal Kingdom (1744-45), the eight-volume Arcana Coelestia (1749-56), Divine Love and Wisdom (1763), True Christian Religion (1771), and Spiritual Diary. Followers founded the New Church. 48 Carrie Amelia Moore Nation (1846-1911) was a temperance advocate from Arkansas who grew up in the care of her family’s slaves. Organized a local branch of the Woman’s Christian temperance Union and campaigned for enforcement of the state’s liquor laws and women’s suffrage. 49 George Francis Train (1829-1904) was an author, orator, and businessman who helped in the financing of the transcontinental railroad. A world traveler, he was perhaps the inspiration for Jules Verne’s Around the World in Eighty Days. Ran as an independent candidate for president against Ulysses S. Grant and Horace Greeley. 131 perplexity, and despite the protest of the defendant, insisted that Train was insane. If the matter was not obscene, argued his attorneys, his mental condition was immaterial because there was no crime. The court refused to discharge the prisoner but directed the jury, against their judgment, to find him not guilty on the ground of insanity, thus, by necessary implication, deciding the Bible to be criminally obscene. Upon a hearing on a writ of habeas corpus, Train was adjudged sane, and discharged. Thus an expressed decision on the obscenity of the Bible was evaded, though the unavoidable inference was for its criminality. In his autobiography, Train informs us that a Cleveland paper was seized and destroyed for republishing the same Bible quotations that had caused his arrest in New York. Here, then, was a direct adjudication that parts of the Bible are indecent, and therefore unmailable. In 1895, John B. Wise of Clay Center, Kansas, was arrested and fined $50 for sending obscene matter through the mail which again consisted wholly of quotations from the Bible. Despite that, he was found guilty and fined. Just keep in mind a moment the court precedents where portions of the Bible were judicially condemned as criminally obscene. Now, let us connect it with another rule of law. The courts have often decided that a book to be obscene need not be obscene throughout the whole, but if the book is obscene in any part it is an obscene book within the meaning of the statutes. You will see at once that under the present laws and relying wholly on precedents already established, juries of irreligious men could wholly suppress the circulation of the Bible, and in some states, the laws would authorize its seizure and destruction, and all this because the words "indecent and obscene" are not definable in qualities of a book or picture. In other words, all this iniquity is possible under present laws because courts do not heed the maxim, now scientifically demonstrable, viz.: "Unto the pure all things are pure." Of course, the Old Testament in common with all books that are valuable for moral instruction, contains many unpleasant recitals, but that is no reason for suppressing any of them. I prefer to put myself on the side of that English judge who said: "To say in general that the conduct of a dead person can at no time be canvassed; to hold that even after ages are passed the conduct of bad men cannot be contrasted with the good, would be to exclude the most useful part of history." I, therefore, denounce this law because, under it, may be destroyed books containing records of human folly and error from which we may learn valuable lessons, for avoiding the blight of violating nature's moral laws. Under our present statutes, some of the writings of the greatest historians and literary masterpieces have been suppressed, and practically all would be suppressed, if the courts should apply the present judicial test of obscenity. Studies in the Psychology of Sex In England, under a law just like our own in its description of what is prohibited, Dr. Havelock Ellis' Studies in the Psychology of Sex was suppressed as obscene. These studies are so exhaustive and collect so much original and unusual information that they mark an entirely new epoch in the study of sexual science. The German edition of this very superior treatise is denied admission into the United States to protect the morals and perpetuate the ignorance of German-American physicians. Furthermore, no one can doubt that their exclusion is in strict accord with 132 the letter of the law, as the word "obscene" is now interpreted, or interpolated, through the judicial "tests" of obscenity. That scientifically absurd test is decisive even though applied to a scholarly treatise upon sex, and circulated only within the medical profession. The statute, however, made no exception in favor of medical men. An impartial enforcement of the letter of the law, as the word "obscene " is now interpreted, entirely extirpates the scientific literature on sex. So deeply have the judges been impressed with this possible iniquity, that by dictum, quite in excess of their proper power, they have made a judicial amendment to the statute, excepting from its operation books circulated only among physicians. Such judicial legislation of course is made under the pretense of statutory interpretation and involves the ridiculous proposition that a book which is criminally obscene if handed to a layman, changes its character if handed to a physician. It assumes that scientific knowledge of sex is dangerous to the morals of all those who do not use the knowledge as a means of making money in the practice of medicine and that it becomes a moral force, when, and only when, thus employed for pecuniary gain. To send to "purity workers" the standard scientific literature of sex is a crime. Even such persons cannot be trusted to have accurate information. Public morals demand their ignorance. The suppression of the American edition of Studies of the Psychology of Sex only awaits the concurrence of caprice between some fool reformer and a stupid jury and judge. The same statutory words which furnished a conviction in England, are adequate to exclude the German edition from the American market as well. Thus far we have exhibited a few of the matters which can be and have been suppressed under our present mysterious criminal law against "obscene" literature. More will be said upon this matter when we come to study the relationship of our compulsory sex-layman, which changes its character if handed to a physician. It assumes that scientific knowledge of sex is dangerous to the morals of all those who do not use the knowledge as a means of making money in the practice of medicine and that it becomes a moral force, when, and only when, thus employed for pecuniary gain. To send to "purity workers" the standard scientific literature of sex is a crime. Even such persons cannot be trusted to have accurate information. Public morals demand their ignorance. The suppression of the American edition of Studies of the Psychology of Sex only awaits the concurrence of caprice between some fool reformer and a stupid jury and judge. The same statutory words that furnished a conviction in England and here are adequate to exclude the German edition will sooner or later determine the suppression of the American edition. Secularism and Religion All religions and theologies are growths. The sacred writings contain a record of the hopes, the delusional aspirations, the healthy and morbid fears together with the superstitions of our racial childhood. Of necessity, therefore, much that may be useful is incorporated in all religions, the quantity depending directly upon the healthy-mindedness and the relative intellectual maturity of their founders. Let us embrace all the maturing relative truths, wherever found, just as we willingly combat mental disease and ignorance whenever encountered. Even a healthy-minded person can join with the most devout religionists in an earnest hope for a hereafter, where we may again fondle those loved ones whose absence makes life a dreary pathway through a desert. Many of us are unable to find any satisfactory evidence for believing 133 that such hopes for a future life will ever be realized. We are unable to treat a wish-filling fantasy as a fact. Yet the belief of others as to a hereafter is to me a matter of indifference so long as it is the affirmation of a healthy mind, which accordingly does not take this belief very seriously. While I do not care to destroy anyone’s belief in the abstract proposition that there is a life after this one, if I could, I would destroy the belief entertained by many, to the effect that some particular man, priesthood, or church is the owner of the only well paved road leading to a pearly gate beyond whose golden portal all is eternal bliss. Whenever man locates a priest who is believed to have a power of attorney from an almighty god, with authority to collect tolls or tithes along the straight and narrow path that leads to heaven, that man is a slave. He is no longer intellectually free to use impersonal standards for judging what is nearest to the unascertainable absolute truth. With the discovery of an “infallible” guide independent judgment is renounced and every inclination must yield, if necessary, to secure the goodwill of the supposed gatekeeper to eternal bliss. As we would not destroy the mere hope for a hereafter, so neither would we destroy mere belief in the existence of God. That is harmless enough, provided it is not accompanied by the certitude of morbid psychology. Many will find themselves unable to discover any satisfactory reason for believing in the existence of anything superior to or independent of that part of nature whose behavior we can measurably understand. Yet, as to the points of difference between the theist and the atheist, we care very little. A tentative belief in God injures no one. But the psychological causes that make for that belief may be most discreditable to the believer and may make him a danger to society. The belief in God becomes especially injurious when man presumes to define God’s nature by attributing to Him his ignorance, passions, and prejudices. Five hundred years before Christ, thinking men concluded that the world was round instead of flat; 1500 years after Christ the priests and popes were still denying the correctness of this scientific conclusion and justifying their belief by infallible scripture and on the authority of a church that claimed to provide an “infallible,” unchangeable and irreformable moral theology covering this question. I believe it was Magellan who said, “The church says that the earth is flat, but I have seen its shadow upon the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the church.” It is useless to argue that religious persecution will never again occur even in this country. The laws for it already exist. It only remains to mobilize public passions for their enforcement. That many alleged Christians still have the disposition to persecute those who differ from them is manifested in the many social, business, and political boycotts with which skeptics are afflicted, and with the numerous instances in which Mormon missionaries and Jehovah’s Witnesses have been brutally treated by other Christians who, through their ignorance, are unable to answer the missionaries’ arguments. Religious wars and persecutions will not ease until men have become sufficiently healthy-minded and intelligent to know that they have no absolute truths. They cannot possibly acknowledge the possibility of error, so long as they have an infallible Bible, a living prophet, or an infallible pope or church. Those who would question must be of necessity “the enemies of man 134 and God,” and as such must be hated, traduced, imprisoned, and even killed, to prevent the spread of their satanic doubts. Why not, if they have infallible authority? The work of the agnostics will never be finished until religionists have no more feelings about people claiming to hold different opinions on religious matters than they have over differences of opinion as to the chemical constituents of the moon. When we have elevated the individual above the necessity of having a supernatural religion, he will never complain of our having robbed him of his faith without giving him something in its stead. He then understands that he lost only a delusional feeling of guilt and a delusional hope of forgiveness. The cure is better than the disease and its phantasmal palliations. Hours with a Revivalist Not all my attention was directed to those with abnormal sexual histories. For example, I happened to attend a revival at a Methodist church that had a seating capacity of nearly six hundred and the seats were mostly occupied. In the pulpit was a young man of perhaps thirty-five years of age, well built, and over six feet tall. He had a large square face, rather characterless, set upon an equally large neck and broad shoulders. He must have weighed two hundred and fifty pounds. Reared in the country, he would have become an ideal village blacksmith. In Milwaukee, his build would have qualified him for the job of Rausschmeiser. However, a mother’s sentimentalism and education had probably combined to make him a Methodist parson. In sermon and prayer, he told us what fine fellows were God and Jesus. He recommended them both very highly. Yet, while he bestowed much rhetorical flattery on God, there was never a fervent appeal for his help to sinners. It was as if he didn’t need help, or perhaps, never having received any from God, had no confidence in the efficacy of prayer. There were none of the confident assumptions of one who knew that he had God on his side and therefore could point the way for others, compelling their assent to the need for salvation and belief in his authority to offer it. In short, he spoke not as one with authority but rather as a hired man too modest or too indifferent to use the personal pronoun or to claim the authority of a true believer who had felt the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. I felt that he was more concerned with having us believe in his earnestness and his nearness to God than whether we should become earnest seekers after God. The month-long revival was about to close and out of the large audience in regular attendance during the whole month, only a score had chosen to consecrate themselves to God. With pitiful humility, he begged his congregants to come forward, but no one moved. This was Friday, the last night of the revival season. When I spoke to him, he admitted his disappointment with the fruits of his revival efforts. When I asked how he accounted for his failure, he spoke hesitatingly and half absent-mindedly of the power of evil and Satan, the stiff-neckedness and pride of the congregants, and other religious commonplaces. I expressed doubt as to this being the explanation for his failure, and then he turned my question back upon me. I explained in response that his audience was a fair average of religious audiences, just such an audience as Jonathan Edwards, the Rev. Charles G. Finney, or Dwight Moody would have gotten great results from. Manifestly, these troubled souls were humble and distressed and came there for help and consolation but did not receive the spiritual uplift that they needed and desired. 135 I reminded him that I was a stranger and therefore might not be pardoned for saying what an intimate friend might take a chance upon. He assured me, however, that he really would like some light on the situation, and assured me he could stand anything I might be inclined to say. And so I accepted the invitation. I told him that during my attendance at his meetings he never once made any statement about his own religious experiences by way of reinforcement or to impress his audience with the value of his authority. So impersonal was his discourse that a mere agnostic could have delivered his sermon without doing much violence to his convictions. I pointed out that his hymns were all dirges when they should have been of the rousing, thumping, and rhythmic sort. All was too manifestly the unconscious choice of a morose temperament, probably made so by emotional conflicts within. I then discussed these psychological aspects of his character and advised him to study his half-conscious and unexpressed moods to learn if he might not be much happier in a career outside the pulpit. I visited his church again on Sunday to see if my conversation had had any effect on him. After the service, I again waited at the door and walked home with him. When he asked how I thought he had done that day, I told him that it seemed he had put a little more ginger into his sermon than before. However, there were no newcomers to the mourners’ bench so evidently, he was no nearer to his audience than before. I concluded by saying that his effort was inefficient in answering their spiritual needs. He seemed honestly interested in my evaluation but was unconscious of the mental and emotional processes involved in his religious conflict. I told him that I noticed stuttering sometimes in his preaching and that it signified to me his subconscious doubt about the statements he was making. It convinced me that he was not fully at peace with himself in the matter of his preaching or his faith. When we arrived at his home, he invited me to dinner and I accepted. After dinner, we resumed our conversation. I told him that all emotional conflicts have their origin in disturbed sexual emotions; in short, we all have sexual desires, phantasies, or experiences that are more or less shameful secrets to us. This anxiety and suppressed desire were the conditions the revivalist must accept if he wished to succeed. His task, I said, was one of playing upon the guilty consciences of those in the congregation, namely, those victims of sex suppression who had not yet lost all hope of realizing their desires. He needed to preach an insinuating sermon on the sins of the flesh until every suppressed desire, and every shameful experience became a vivid conscious phantasy. Then, he should portray the penalty of those sins in terms of eternal torment amid the lurid gloom of hell. After that would come a change of heart. I felt certain that my revivalist had no conscious lack of faith in his creed but it manifestly had relatively small positive value for him. His difficulty was not over creedal formulas; rather, his difficulties had more to do with his emotional attitude toward those underlying intellectual issues that remained unresolved in his unconsciousness. Moreover, his intellectual self-respect had come into conflict with his desire for efficiency in a field where untrained or hysterical emulations were everything, and calm intellectual processes accounted for nothing. Bishop William Montgomery Brown In 1924, I became embroiled in the heresy trial of Bishop William Montgomery Brown, the fifth Bishop of Arkansas of the Episcopal Church in America. His court was the American House of Bishops. His offense was a book which bore the extraordinary title: Communism and 136 Christianism, Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View. Its publisher was Bradford-Brown Educational Company, Inc. of Galion, Ohio. A resolution of the Jubilee Council of the Episcopal Diocese of Arkansas demanded that Bishop Brown be deposed and excommunicated for his “most pernicious propaganda against the church and her teachings, and doctrines.” How, except through insanity, could such a book ever come from among the very elect, of the most aristocratic church of America? That is the question I put to myself. Born of pioneer parents in 1855 in Orrville, Ohio, his father was killed while fighting to end slavery, and when his mother could no longer support him, young William was turned over to a German farmer named Jonas Yoder. A pious Dunkard, Yoder nonetheless shamelessly exploited the boy to the point where he was removed and placed in the poorhouse. During a severe illness, he made a promise to become a preacher if God permitted him to live. Given over to the Jacob Gardner family to raise, young William was brought up in orthodox Methodist fashion and when he approached maturity, he became a teacher and eventually was ordained in the Episcopal church. Full of zeal following his election to the episcopate in 1898, he wrote a missionary book, The Church for Americans, that became widely popular as a manual of churchmanship resulting in the House of Bishops elevating him to their rank to work as the fifth bishop of Arkansas. The bishop’s next book, The Level Plan for Church Union (1910), argued that it was wrong to limit the right to preach to the official ministry. In it, he promoted interchurch unions using laymen and laywomen in the pulpit. Soon afterward, Bishop Brown’s missionary zeal brought him face to face with what everyone called “The Negro Problem,” and being a Northern man in Arkansas, his work among Negroes made him many enemies. Believing that if he could help the Negro he must himself become “Southernized,” his episcopate became an increasingly stormy one. He felt, on the one hand, that the Negro should be helped; and this he felt could be done only through religion. On the other hand, he believed the Negro could not be helped without the aid of the whites, and this aid could not be had in congregations of mixed races. So, for the sake of the Negro, Bishop Brown quite out-Heroded the Southern Herod of color-line distinction. In other words, it was necessary to draw a more rigid color line between the races, which in the South was highly complex. To achieve this, he proposed establishing an autonomous Negro Episcopate in which Negroes would have their own independent House of Bishops of equal independence and rank. In making this plea, he argued that in helping Blacks to attain greater equality, it was necessary to defend almost every Southern prejudice. This, plus his strong recommendation to ensure that their faith had a firm scientific foundation, caused him to become highly suspect. Some Negroes were offended because the Bishop, in seeking to make his plan acceptable to whites, had over-stressed the difference in cultural and moral status between Caucasians and Negroes. Some high churchmen were offended by his practical and predominant insistence upon the concerns of this world. “If religion is what it ought to be, it is social and political,” he said, and not metaphysical. The pressures from all sides led to the deterioration of his health to such an extent that, in 1911, it became necessary for the diocese to elect a coadjutor to whom Bishop Brown relinquished his responsibilities. A year later he presented his resignation to the House on the grounds of ill health and left the state. Freed from the burden of his office, Brown proceeded to study sociology, biology, and general science. With the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, Bishop Brown bid farewell to all supernaturalistic interpretations of faith, including the Book of Common Prayer, claiming that it 137 was no longer possible for him to accept the inerrancy and infallibility of the Bible. Called a heretic and blasphemer for having too much sympathy for the underdog, Bishop Brown’s repudiation of the Christian religion became more and more pronounced as he came before the public as an active opponent of faith and its underlying religion. From the beginning of the controversy, Bishop Brown contended that orthodox Christianity had become an utter impossibility in the age of science and should therefore be abandoned. There was utter foolishness in the gospel’s representations concerning the salvation of man in connection with the basic doctrine of the Christian Trinity. In 1922 he wrote a letter to the House of Bishops that contained the following proposition: If the members of the House of Bishops will place themselves on record as believing the representations of the Bible, literally interpreted, concerning the creation of Adam and Eve; the planting of the Garden of Eden; the Fall of Adam and Eve; and its effects; the birth of Jesus; His death and descent into hell; His resurrection and ascension into Heaven; and His second coming to raise all deceased men, women and children from the dead, and judge and send them to Heaven or Hell, I will resign, and do thereby agree to resign my seat in the House. The offer was not accepted; instead, in 1924, they charged him with heresy. The Bishops did not find an easy way of getting rid of their heretical brother. On receiving notification of the charge, Bishop Brown wrote to me indicating he was about to be tried for heresy for having rejected all religious supernatural teachings and rational deductions, as well as for espousing Darwin’s evolutionary teachings, and the economic and social reform world of Marx and Engels. “My great desire,” he wrote, “is to be tried by scientists rather than by priests and bishops. I will meet my trial next week before a convention of bishops as best I can, but should esteem it greatly if you and some twenty or thirty other prominent scientists act independently as judges in my case, to each of whom I will submit a scientific concise brief of my case, and am willing to be further questioned by each of you by letter if desired.” In his next book, Communism and Christianism: Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View (1925), he proposed to substitute Marxian Socialism for Christianity and invited readers to join him. This was not a mere presentation of Marxism, it was an attack upon Christianity in which he did not attempt to preserve even those expressions of reverence which, one would suppose, would be the last things for him to abandon. As he explained, Of course, I no longer believe in God who sits upon a literal throne in a firmament above the earth. Now I express my gratitude only to nature and to the working men who in conjunction produce all I consume and by whose grace I live, move, and have my being. That is why I am a Communist. If the Anglican creed is not elastic enough to permit one to read into it all that one believes to be the result of modern intellectual progress, then perhaps I ought to be put out. However, I consider that in excommunicating me under such conditions, the Anglican communion is in effect saying that it is incapable of progress and does not want intelligent membership. 138 The bishop called himself a “Christian Atheist” while his peers preferred to call him “Bishop of the Atheists.” I believe that this emotionally laden epithet of reproach is routinely applied to anyone who is not liked, with the view of injuring them. With more sanity and more intelligence, the bishops should have indicated what precisely was wrong with his economic theory if they knew. His accusers, who were either sincere or utterly insane, actually lived by the communist formula within the circle of their own family, and some of their more intimate friends and supporters did as well. Many Christian societies lived according to what they reproached him for. As soon as I learned that Bishop Brown was to be tried as a heretic, I offered my services. His attorneys (Cook, McGowan, Foote, Bushnell, and Burgess) doubted the effectiveness of my contributions, but Bishop Brown insisted that I be brought into the case. We corresponded frequently, with the bishop addressing me as “Dear Comrade.” Since the essential doctrines of the church had never been authoritatively nor adequately formulated as such, I presented the doctrinal issue as a legitimate question of fact. What are the doctrines and how much of Bishop Brown’s heresy could be tolerated within the borders of orthodoxy? The House of Bishops, however, declined to point out the precise doctrines under attack. In a civil court, Bishop Brown would have had good reason to say he was being deprived of his rights by “due process of law” because he was unable to learn what metaphysical speculations he was accused of having contradicted. He argued that it was impossible to formulate a standard of orthodoxy in terms of mental content but only in the creedal and ceremonial symbolization of belief. This allowed different people to remain in the Episcopal Church because they could accept the statements of doctrine and the scriptures as figurative or symbolic presentations. Under this symbolism, fellowship and communion of members were possible. The essence of religion, I explained, was found in subjective states, sources, and processes. I was reminded of what Emerson wrote in his diary as a young man: “Christianity is wrongly conceived by all such as take it for a system of doctrines.” As I wrote in an article published in The Open Court. Belief in God or gods is not an indispensable element of religion, is the conclusion of many who have studied the history of religions. The Buddhists furnish phenomena unquestionably religious, yet admittedly do not believe in a God. Likewise, there is nothing in the religion of the Brahmin which can properly be called a God. What we carelessly designate as his “God” is, in fact, but a subjective substitute. The Vedantist believes in a self within the person which is the carrier of his personality, and a self without the person which is the carrier of the world. The trial brought to light the smoke and mirrors with which the House of Bishops had operated. I wanted the church freed from the handicap of an uncertain literalism but failed to draw from the bishops a statement of any standard of orthodoxy. It was their failure that became our greatest triumph because it was our contention from the outset that it could not be done. We were told only that the doctrine was contained, but not formulated, in the Prayer Book and the Scriptures. 139 Judged by such supernatural literalism, everyone is a heretic. When Bishop Brown demanded a standard of orthodoxy in terms of uniform theological mental content, the bishops were silent and helpless. The question always on my mind was why on earth did Bishop Brown, who was twice found guilty of heresy, make such a fuss about being kicked out of the House of Bishops? He was now over seventy years old had long been on the retired list and received no money from the church. For a dozen years, he had not even attended a meeting of the House of Bishops or performed any ecclesiastical function. Nor did he care to resume active responsibilities. What, then, was the meaning of all this? Since apparently, he was neither fighting for supernatural glory nor American dollars, he must surely be insane. Any other explanation was unthinkable. Besides, excusing him on the grounds of insanity created the illusion that a charitable attitude was being held by the House of Bishops toward an “unfortunate” member. The only trouble with this theory was that Bishop Brown refused to play the part. He was not insane and refused to accept the accusation. I concluded that it was not his heresy that troubled the bishops, half so much as his economic views. But they could not tell the public that this was the cause of their desire to expel him. There was also another cause for distress. Many of the bishops later admitted that the heresy hunt had been a great mistake but, unhappily, they could not undo it. Ill-prepared for such a showdown, they were made to look ridiculous. The House of Bishops floundered somewhere between the devil of the older orthodoxy and the deep sea of modern science. Had they been able to define orthodoxy, they could have eliminated the greater part of Brown’s tactics. I believe that Bishop Brown was more of an old-fashioned fundamentalist than he admitted. I think the zeal of his defense was in some manner a measure of his religious zeal that was being ineffectively repressed. This impulse predisposed him to accept a communist creed and compelled him to rationalize his aversion to exploitation in terms of opposition to the church and its theology which made him express himself in atheistic and materialistic terms. I concluded from my numerous conversations and correspondence with Bishop Brown that he would like to have received credit for liberalizing the Church. Believing that it was impossible to define orthodoxy in terms of any uniform mental content, he wished his colleagues to admit that as a fact, and to act accordingly. Although Bishop Brown once counted himself a member of the “High Church” party, he now believed that the official policy should be neither “high” nor “low,” but “broad.” By this, he understood that everyone who lived a conventionally righteous life, and who enjoyed working for human betterment under the creedal and ceremonial symbols of the Church should be eligible for membership. He desired those who supported the Church, as well as those who only took their naps in the Church, might hereafter know what sort of institution it was. Inevitably, he said, the House of Bishops was on trial before the enlightened portion of public opinion. When judgment shall have been passed on him, quite inevitably and automatically the House of Bishops would, by the same token, pass judgment upon itself and the Church. Bishop Brown reimbursed me for my expenses and also sent me checks demonstrating his appreciation for my contributions to his trial and appeals. Criminology and Social Psychology 140 By the prevailing mechanistic and moralistic conceptions of crime, we classify the criminal according to his act or its effects. A clearer understanding of the problem requires that the classification be made based on those physical and mental conditions that predisposed or led the convict to become a criminal. Perhaps the first tentative classification should be based on a thorough physical examination. This examination would aim to discover and relieve all curable physical infirmities, so that upon his discharge the prisoner so far as possible, would have the advantage of a full-blooded, perfectly healthy body, as the basis of a sounder mind and an enlarged capacity for adapting himself to his environment. Deficient nutritive values, which increase the prisoners’ inefficiency, should not be a part of the punishment. The physical needs having been covered the convict may be turned over to a psychological laboratory for further diagnosis, and classification. Laboratory psychology has developed an elaborate technique for the standardized measurement and classification of the human machine. Thus, experts can recognize a certain number of "criminals '' as the victims of congenital and physiological defects. Such convicts need a special kind of treatment or training, already known and considerably developed. Another group can be segregated from the rest as belonging to the class of the morbidly inefficient. For these, an institution for psychiatric treatment is indicated as essential to efficient restoration. Both of these groups should be removed from the jail proper to different adjuncts, suitably equipped to supply their special needs. Further investigation of these groups should yield instructive results leading to the extension and refinement of the old method. I am glad to note that in several places, work of this sort is already underway. I have already indicated my intention to emphasize the study of that special class of convicts who do not show any conspicuous physical or intellectual defects as would furnish an adequate explanation for their anti-social impulses and behavior. In the absence of such an explanatory background, we may tentatively hold that the essential subjective contribution toward the inadequate social adaptation of such convicts is to be sought in their emotional attitudes. That their troubles are due to emotional disturbances, is a proposition in keeping with the latest discoveries in the field of applied analytical psychology. The subjective and genetic investigation of emotions is peculiarly the function of the analytical psychologist. It follows that an efficient prison laboratory of psychology should include a psychoanalytic department. The psychoanalyst sees the human energy expending itself quite exclusively in the pursuit of nutritive and sexual objects. For the ordinary man, of relatively mature unified motives, the satisfaction of the essential nutritive requirements is quite readily accomplished. On account of various artificial, moralistic, social, and economic reasons and our compulsory sex ignorance, the satisfaction of sexual needs is more difficult. Failure to achieve a mature mode of sexual adjustment, therefore is what most frequently induces intense emotional disturbances and it is in just such lack of emotional balance that the psychoanalyst finds the genesis of most of the emotional conflicts, protruding general inefficiency. Therefore, many specialists have concluded that as society is now constituted, the emotional disturbances arising from sexual sources are the most important causes of inefficient adaptation on the part of many individuals. It has been clearly shown that the emotional tones and the conflicts which we acquire from our encounter with our sexual problems, quite dominate the feeling-attitudes with which we 141 approach every other problem of life. In their turn, these emotional tones, largely determine our success or failures in dealing with the economic (nutritive) problems. In the consequent maladaptation, “crime” appears to many as the only way out of the perplexing difficulty. From this viewpoint, the tentative inferences seem justified that the sexual psychology with its taboos and the compulsory ignorance imposed by our legalized sex censorship, may have much to do with determining those emotional imperatives which finally make anti-social conduct inevitable. Already we know that they are very influential in the production of hysterics and a large group of the insane. Thus a study of the emotional disturbances that bring about economic inefficiency and anti-social conduct quite necessarily leads to a mind concerning sex. We may find that the same causes that produce that greater inefficiency which we classify as insanity, also produce the lesser inefficiencies of the very many “criminals.” From this point of view, many conflicts may be found to represent an intermediate stage between the average man and the lunatic. In its subjective aspect, the emotional development of the individual may be expressed in terms of the human lust for power. The all-pervading law of change implies also an evolution of desire. The various stages of the maturity of this craving for power manifest themselves in the aims and methods appropriate to the attainment of the nutritive and sex objects, or the uses to which these are put. Here again, the emotional evolutionary status of our sexual desires unconsciously furnishes the matrix for the struggle. From this viewpoint, we may look upon the "criminal" as representing an intermediate stage of development between the healthy normal individual's way of meeting and solving personal problems, and the morbidly immature way of doing so. An important problem for the future is to develop a clearer evolutionary concept of desire, sexual and social, and to establish a technique for the conscious reconditioning of desires, to make them progressively more mature. This may well be considered an indispensable aim of the newer criminology, modern pedagogy, and social psychology. Desire is essentially a development from the extreme of infantile parasitism, as evidenced in criminals and many of our "pillars of society," to maximum of efficiency in the conscious pursuit of the widest and most impersonal social service. The development of a technique for thus reconditioning human desires in groups or classes should be made a deliberate part of the working program of a prison laboratory of psychology. Psychoanalysts have found that the mind of the child in its development is intimately dependent upon parental psychology. Indeed, the habitual conduct of the child is but its oft-repeated reaction to equally habitual attitudes on the part of the parents. We study each as a means for better understanding the other because parent and child are mutually determining and interdependent minds. From this viewpoint the disturbed juvenile emotions are but the automatic reaction to the psycho-social environment as furnished in the first place by the parents and secondly by the more remote environment, especially about sex. An investigation of this source of criminality either confirms or destroys a current hypothesis of many, that our sex- superstitions, taboos, and censorship are as largely responsible for habitual criminality as for hysteria. When the hysterically inefficient persons are not aided in an adaption, they are often forced into crime as the only known solution for their problem. This question of the influence of sexual taboos and its resulting ignorance in producing the "criminal," should be made another important feature of a prison laboratory of psychology. From such studies of convicts, we may also hope to find 142 approximate corrective principles, to guide us in the management of penal institutions as well as for the guidance of the convict to a more mature efficiency. Let us once more apply the theory that each of us is always in interaction with our environment. Our conduct, therefore, is only our reaction to the social environment, especially during the formative and more impressionable period of youth. From this viewpoint, the "habitual criminal" is manifesting his habitual personal reaction to the habitual attitudes of his larger human environment. Hence the importance of studying the mental makeup of the criminal as a means of understanding the larger social psychology. In a prison laboratory of psychology, we have an excellent opportunity to study the psycho-genetic reactions of convicts to acquire an enlarged and refined understanding of the value and defects of those social institutions that contributed to the delinquency of the prisoners and in youth turned them toward criminal careers. Beyond a study of the criminal to satisfy a very narrowly conditioned curiosity, I can see a desire to study the criminal as a means to find out what is immature or inefficient in the human factor of his larger environment. This then is the common field for a study of criminology and social psychology, wherein we will be primarily concerned with finding corrections for ourselves by discovering how, and what we have contributed to the psychological imperative of the jail-bird. Not until we understand and acknowledge the criminal tendencies in ourselves, and have a clear vision of the character of our own unpunished and uncondemned anti-social behavior, especially toward the potential as well as the convicted "criminal", have we even begun to have anything worthy of the name of "criminology,” or "social psychology.” From such work as I have in mind, if conducted by men with the psychoanalytic technique accompanied by an adequate evolutionary philosophy of social and personal life and a consequent vision of the social ideal toward which we tend blindly and unconsciously as yet, we may someday be able to eliminate from all healthy bodied persons the impulse toward all anti- social behavior, only a small fraction of which is now penalized, and some of which manifests itself in us whenever we seek to punish. That thereby "crime" will be minimized admits of no doubt, but this is the least important achievement of such a technique for character development. Already the more efficient psychoanalysts are doing wonderful work of this kind with individual patients. Someday the same general method, elaborated and adapted to group instruction, must be applied in our schools, to the end of minimizing, in the healthy bodied ones even precluding, those emotional disturbances which underlie inefficiency and so make suffering and "crime" inevitable. So we may also hope to find in it a means for minimizing the suffering that is unconsciously and automatically inflicted by the beneficiaries of that perfectly lawful antisocial behavior, which is not yet recognized as a crime. This anti-social impulse now includes the joy of punishing those who are first precluded from acquiring mature desires and capacities and then are punished for the consequent inefficient adaptations to their environment. The prisons might also furnish an experimental station for testing out some theories for the development of the motives utilizing class instruction. When a technique is found relatively efficient it might be tried out and developed in our public schools. This then, is the larger social service that can be performed by a psychological laboratory if we make intelligent use of the materials now going to waste in our penal institutions. Here we may develop a technique for realizing Professor Dewey's theory of "Democracy and Education," as expressed in these words: "Only that which has been organized into our dispositions to enable us to adapt our aims and desires to the situation in which we live is 143 knowledge; and such knowledge so far as possible equalized, will then be the essence of a conscious approach to the development of a real democracy. Leopold and Loeb On May 21, 1924, students Nathan F. Leopold Jr. and Richard A. Loeb at the University of Chicago, obsessed with the idea of committing a perfect crime, kidnapped and murdered fourteen-year-old Bobby Franks in Chicago, killing him with a chisel and stuffing his body in a culvert. The police tracked the two murderers from a pair of glasses prescribed for Nathan Leopold which were left at the crime scene. Their wealthy families hired Clarence Darrow to save them from the death penalty. From the very beginning of the trial, I felt it was a chance to teach an important sociological and educational lesson, and wrote Darrow seeking an opportunity to study the psychological background of his clients to determine if they had a sadomasochistic conflict. As I explained to Darrow, because I combined a considerable knowledge of both law and abnormal psychology, I would add factors of efficiency in preparation for his case. “For these jobs, I have an unusual background in that I have an unusual capacity for getting detailed concepts of the mental mechanisms and psychogenetic contribution to the determination of functional disorders of the nervous system. Few men in America excel me in this particular, I believe. There are plenty of other aspects of abnormal psychology that I know little about. But this matter of getting at the mental mechanisms, far below the surface, I have specialized upon, perhaps more thoroughly than most professional alienists. . . . I am not expecting to get very rich out of any fees that I may receive, although I do not underestimate the market value of such services as I have a special capacity for rendering.” For whatever reason, I did not receive a response. Herd Impulse A critical review of some of the chief demands now being made in the name of democracy will show that these are not the goal, nor the essence, of the social order toward which we are evolving. It will be shown that they are the only instruments to be used in the attainment of the unconscious real goal of the democratizing process. That goal is the herd impulse functioning at its best, under conditions approximating a unification of the race. This would mean the democratization of service and welfare. From this avenue of approach, the process of democratization will be seen to be a continuous advance toward racial unity on the part of the herd (with which we identify ourselves) and an ever-enlarging consciousness of the relations and behavior of the human animal, especially in the psychic aspects of its social behavior. With this, there will also be an evolution in the psychic essence of our identification with our herd. The ultimate and perhaps unattainable goal of the herd impulse is the unification of the whole race, not by political forms or military prowess which can create only a misleading appearance, but through mutuality of understanding which is to be promoted (if not accomplished) by the greater democratization of education and of welfare. This will eliminate an important objective stimulus to fear and strife. In the meantime, the gang spirit, when attached to larger groups, such as nations and economic classes, is equally anti-social in the larger sense, even though the impulse to cruelty is intellectualized and rationalized in terms of equality, morality, love of family, or the will of God. Wars and revolutions are only the convulsive manifestations of the herd 144 impulse, now perverted in part or at least intellectualized in terms of economic fear. The fearful individual finds an objective justification for his fear and the resultant violence in the established inequalities of education and welfare. Thus national, religious, ethnic, and economic class hatreds and loyalties are the immature or perverted impulsive manifestations of an enlarged gang spirit, which could be well developed into an approximation of racial solidarity. Group honor, pride, morality, loyalty, and patriotism are accepted as flattering labels for the subjective aspects of the malady, only because we still lack the understanding to make efficient groupings according to the relative maturity of our desires and mental processes. When we have outgrown those emotional conflicts that express themselves partly in violent distortions of the herd impulse, the urge to fight will be replaced by a more efficient, more mature, desire to conciliate through mutual service, free from those inequalities that are the essence and product of our present economic exploitation. When we approach that evolutionary stage we shall more and more seek to promote mutuality of understanding. In larger complex groups this can be expected only after there is a much nearer approach to a democratized education which must first minimize the inequalities in the development of our understanding. As a result of this, the herd impulse will find more peaceful and larger expression and more mature satisfaction. There is much evidence to support the contention that our social institutions and laws show that on the whole humanity is functioning on the level of the emotional conflict of childhood and early adolescence. So long as we are functioning on the level of the emotional conflict, our desires and activities are determined by our emotional past, through subjective conditions. Therefore, they will always seem in conflict with similarly conditioned desires of others unless we can harbor the delusion that our desires are somehow vicariously perhaps, dominating the situation. When we have attained freedom from emotional conflict and have achieved approximately the same understanding of the relations and behavior in and among humans, then a new kind of harmony prevails. Now we achieve comfortable adjustments to each other by employing a mutuality of adjustment to natural law, similarly understood. In the case under consideration, it will be a mutual adjustment to the natural processes of democratization. When individuals, groups, or nations, cheerfully subordinate their infantile cravings for omnipotence, the great slaughter, and by glorifying some aspects of it. Of course, some of the hysterical types of opponents of war may play the same psychological trick themselves. This will be a better world to live in when all these emotions (these loves as well as hates) are outgrown and the democratization of welfare has been at least approximately achieved. Heretofore we have not understood the behavior of human energy in these matters, and the great world war was the result. Now many of the victims of a feeling of inferiority seek to achieve a compensatory feeling of importance by identifying themselves with the great slaughter, and by glorifying some aspects of it. Of course, some of the hysterical types of opponents of war may play the same psychological trick upon themselves. This will be a better world to live in when all these emotions are outgrown and the democratization of welfare has been at least approximately achieved, through a larger understanding. When humans first tried to explain the habits of nature, they invented a super-human intelligence. When frustrated by other humans, some “leaders” invented “divine laws” with supernatural rewards and punishments, to secure subservience. Serfs received “soul liberty” in the 145 hereafter as a reward for servitude here. In time rebellious serfs invented the theory that “the voice of the people is the voice of God.” Thus began “democracy.” Later came legislators who were not priests, and some clergy accepted a separation of church and state—on paper. However, they insisted that no man-made law was valid if contrary to their conception of “divine law.” Thus began “liberty under (man-made) laws,” and “Christian Democracy,” and demands for secular democracy. In time, some considered man-made laws to be just as ignorant and tyrannous as “divine law.” These demanded “liberty under natural laws.” The priests again agreed, but claimed that all “natural laws” are God’s creation and therefore are “divine law;” and that one priesthood is its only divinely authorized interpreter. Some scientists’ conception of “natural law” includes the conditioning of emotions for an accelerated psycho-sexual maturing and psycho-social evolution. When these and other “natural laws” are equally and more thoroughly understood, and generally obeyed, then we will approach near to having equal and maximum liberty under “natural law”—not the priests’ “law.” John Dewey John Dewey has been praised as the foremost liberal interpreter, educator, and reformer of 20th-century America, but although his thinking is reflected in our present educational system, it must not and cannot be considered the final word. To be truthful, I have little regard for all present theories of education, including Dewey’s. His work on education was mainly modifying the curriculum to meet student needs, giving special attention to the individuality of each student, and developing and directing their growth. He stressed the formal inculcation of knowledge and ignored the subjective process of education for the democratization of mental hygiene and psychological maturing. As an evolutionary psychologist, I believe that an intelligent system of education must be designed to accelerate the natural processes of mental maturing and ignore the formal inculcation of knowledge simply because its shelf life is so limited. For Dewey, it is purely a matter of intellectual training. For me, the goal of education is to make it possible for the student to do ever more realistic thinking. This cannot be done by moralistic or idealistic indoctrination but by having thought and action determined by more objective factors. It requires helping young people to outgrow their unreconciled impulses through evolutionary psychology. Philosophical realism, for which Dewey was America’s leading advocate, failed to address the psychological factors in our larger social issues. It would be fair to say that Dewey never saw the immaturity of human impulses and intellectual methods as basic problems in our society. Instead, he voiced his adherence to the same pattern of fallacy that shaped other leading thinkers. For this and other reasons, we should abolish all current conceptions of education and introduce real mental hygiene as part of the process of getting rid of all schemes of moralistic (that is, neurotic) character development. A new education must substitute for all the window-dressing culture that now passes for education. My analysis convinced me beyond any doubt of the limitations of my thinking faculties. In short, I cannot know anything about any absolute, not even that it exists. It follows that psychological maturing results only in the form of little progress toward the unattainable absolute truth. This means that all our thinking has an element of illusion in it. The process of psychological maturing minimizes the illusional element in our thinking. The evolutionary psychologist can roughly determine which of the differing claims of truth has the least of illusional elements—which is nearest to the unattainable absolute truth. It follows that every human issue is in part a problem of human nature, namely, a problem of relative mental health and relative psychological immaturity. It also follows that every debate about social or 146 international problems should be a debate about the relative immaturity of the impulses and the intellectual methods of the disputants. My intent has always been to unify the conflicting views of democracy using the psycho-evolutionary aspect of democratization. This requires that the political machinery of democracy must be supplemented, if not supplanted, by a democratized education. Doing so will unquestionably accentuate individual differences but it will also produce increased intelligence and efficiency for a unified endeavor to promote the collective welfare. The remedy for class conflict and war lies in minimizing the emotional conflicts of the individual. Another important factor in increasing human solidarity is a more conscious democratization of education as the only peaceful method of promoting the democratization of everything else. Only in this manner can we ensure that mutuality of understanding which is essential to peaceful readjustments. In such a viewpoint we may discover both the desirability and the means to enlighten as well as satisfy the gregarious impulse on ever maturer evolutionary levels. There are many, however, whose conscious attitude is opposed to further democratization. Even though this spirit manifests itself on a high cultural level, its mental processes are infantile. In popular parlance, this is called a feudal-minded or reactionary temperament that is so fearful of democratic progress or experimentation that it is willing to fight to arrest it. People so minded cannot take chances on neutralizing their fears or having them proved unfounded by the establishment of new and ever-changing social conditions. Their fears are too intense and therefore must be maintained at any price. These persons frequently manifest a violent resistance to the further progress of democracy as well as an extravagant glorification of the democracy already achieved. No one of any importance in our “moron” civilization sees our personal or social problems as being problems of our defective, immature, slowly and tortuously thwarted human nature. Consequently, no one of any importance is seeking to find a saner, more intelligent, and more mature psychological approach to any of our personal or social problems. We get nothing but special pleas made by people with “split personalities” in defense of unconsciously determined prejudices. That is why our wars to make the world safe for democracy and our peace treaties fail to promote any goal of human betterment. Yes! Our so-called leaders always overlook the element of our evolving human nature, except for getting themselves into places of power. The psycho-neurotic leaders of our “moron” civilization are coaxing, fooling, or driving us around a vicious circle of reforms that are delusionally called “progress.” Human conduct has always been controlled by immature passions. The race is still too blind and too much in the throes of childhood's emotional conflicts to see the truth. With a larger understanding will come the conviction that the only sensible solution for all our social problems lies in democratized and democratizing education rather than in violence or even in the worship of democratic political forms and ceremonials such as voting. There is another kind of unification which to me seems to be more mature. Here there is just enough emotionalism to enable one to understand the feelings of others who are differently conditioned. In this mature striving, emotionalism is always subordinated, corrected, and checked by an ever-enlarging understanding of the behavior and relations of humans. This must include an understanding of the person's psychological past and all this must be seen in its relation to the 147 future. The past and future should be seen as an inseparable union and part of the psychic aspects of our social evolution. From this angle, racial solidarity is no longer a mere emotional attachment to remote humans. On the contrary, it is a striving for unity through cheerful conformity toward ever more democracy. Now, instead of sentimentalizing, we should seek to democratize education and to educate for accelerated democratization. In this manner, we will help all adjust to the natural processes of peaceful democratization. Liberty Through Impersonal Service Thus far I have endeavored to suggest that the psychic forces involved in our social evolution tend toward a social ideal. Even formulating this ideal, as something toward which we may strive, enables us to adjust more efficiently to the evolutionary forces and conditions which are always blindly pushing us in that direction. By desiring to serve others, we minimize our tendencies toward conduct that is considered antisocial; at the same time, we remove the temptation of others to use coercive measures against us. Our desire to serve intelligently tends to promote appeals to understanding rather than appeals to sentimentalism, or for securing approval of our conceptions of social utility for the attainment of our more personal ends. As we grow in the consciousness of our mutual dependence, we become aware of our more mature, and therefore less antisocial behavior. This intelligence tends to minimize in us the desire to participate in the state regulation of other people’s lives, and instead, the desire to render voluntary social service as a more mature means to more enlightened methods of minimizing the temptation for coerced social service. As we grow away from the infant’s wholly self-centered interest, there comes first an extension of the selfishness to others with whom there is also a more or less blind emotional identification to the family, clan, church, club, town, or social and economic class. These expanding groups are selected more according to social and humanistic elements of unification and less according to such unimportant differentiating facts as money, geography, creed, or race. As the sentimental, personal, family, and patriotic interests tempt us to seek advantage for our group at the expense of those outside, the more mature understanding of human relations leads us to the repudiation of the emotionally satisfying privilege and lures us to be content with justice according to more enlightened standards. This, of course, means justice toward other human beings. Thus, we grow toward that mutuality of consciousness that conditions our development toward the impersonal life and its approximate realization. This is the only means by which our conception and realization of justice and liberty become more mature, refined, and stable. When developed, all will be guided by an enlightened selfishness that finds its most satisfactory pleasure only when every other person’s selfish cravings are considered and equally satisfied. As our development approaches the stage where we desire and can approximately live the impersonal life, we will be the friends of all. Without doing personal charity to any, we will cheerfully devote our lives to the impersonal service of all. This is the ideal of the impersonal life toward which we grow unconsciously and which would be good for humanity consciously to pursue even though it probably can never be fully realized. As the sentimental, personal, family, and patriotic interests tempt us to seek advantage for our group, at the expense of those outside, so the mature understanding of human relations leads to the repudiation of the emotionally satisfying privilege and lures us to be content with mere 148 justice, according to more enlightened standards. This, of course, means a justice that will preclude the disinheritance and disemployment of any human being. The assumed responsibility for the narrower family and social groups now expands to a full understanding of the larger natural responsibility of each for all and is accompanied by a consciously assumed responsibility for the abolition of privileged and unfortunate classes. By desiring to serve others we eliminate our tendencies toward conduct that is anti-social, and at the same time, we lessen the temptation of others to use coercive measures against us. Our desire to serve will tend to promote our reliance on appeals to understanding, rather than appeals to force, for securing approval of our conceptions of social utility and for the attainment of our more personal ends. Also, the more inclusive our understanding of our mutuality of consciousness—the more our ends will become identical with social ends, and conflicts between personal purposes and group purposes will be progressively minimized. From such considerations we see that by a growth in understanding, that is a development in both self-consciousness and mutuality of consciousness, we inevitably drift toward a state of society in which the extreme of collectivism, in the objects of service voluntarily rendered, progressively approaches an identity with anarchism. This illustrates the meeting of extremes wherein the most impersonal service and a growth toward voluntary socialism as the more intelligent means of self-service, merge into anarchism. My Caribbean Experiences Beginning in 1927, and until 1936, with both Nancy and me in our sixties, we chose to spend our winters either in the town of Frederiksted in the U. S. Virgin Islands, or San Juan, the capital city of Puerto Rico. We loved the Islands. Often when I wrote, I did so while sitting on my balcony less than a hundred feet from the Caribbean Sea. In the foreground, I could see some tropical shrubs and children bathing. Although shrubs, children, and the wide expanse of the sea were part of my mental content, it could not be said that I was conscious of them. My attention was diffused over the broad expanse of water. A myriad of colors dazzled in the glare of the setting sun. I experienced an aesthetic thrill. The shrubs, children, fish, glowing sunset, and even the brilliant colorings of the men faded into the recesses of consciousness as I concentrated on the aesthetic beauty. I can understand that another person more sensitive than myself to such aesthetic impressions might become wholly lost to the peripheral sensations and their cause through a completely obsessing attention to pure aesthetic enjoyment. Having less than this extreme of aesthetic sensitiveness, my eyes and attention nonetheless wandered leisurely out toward the distant horizon. There my attention was arrested by a barely visible spot which did not change with the rhythmic movement of light and shade among the waves. This spot held my attention as an intrusion that disturbed the aesthetic harmony. I eventually became aware that this spot was a distant ship. My mind was then filled with visions of tourists on board enjoying a vacation afloat with all the anticipations, joys, and disappointments that I had experienced on similar trips. My eye wandered, but my fantasy and conscious mental content was of the social events and flirtations which no doubt occurred on board. Shrubs, children, sharks, glowing sunsets, glittering rippling pastel colorings, were all as remote from consciousness as last year’s bird nests. And yet they were all within the periphery of my vision. 149 Our time in the Islands gave me a new perspective on my earlier views regarding race prejudice. There were very few whites who were beyond suspicion of having some African American blood in their veins. I found that race issues differed from island to island. After living on the islands for some years, I was compelled to study my reactions toward the natives. It was my first experience of life among colored folk; also, this was after I had been psychoanalyzed. As the women passed me on the streets, I became conscious of differences in my reaction toward them. To some, I gave a second glance. Others I noticed not at all. What was the underlying cause for this unconsciously determined discrimination? By more careful observation, I found that those who automatically attracted my attention were invariably those with lighter olive skin and those who had the closest approximation to my conventional conception of Nordic beauty. I thought that the women of Trinidad with East Indian blood in their veins were the most beautiful of all. Again, I was exhibiting an unconscious prejudice in favor of the white race and olive-skinned Jewish women. Once discovered, this prejudice was easily corrected by the use of my psycho-voluntary appraisal of them. Puerto Rico When Puerto Rico was made a war indemnity at the end of the Spanish-American War, all state-owned property, whether used by the Church or administered by ecclesiastics, became the legal property of the United States government. Years later, under the recommendation of a commission headed by William Howard Taft, Congress donated this property to the Catholic Church or allowed the church to purchase it at depreciated levels. During that time, Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., was appointed Governor of Puerto Rico and expected to be Governor General of the Philippines. He was discussed as a candidate for Vice President, with Mr. Herbert Hoover as his running mate in 1932. Some of his friends insisted that he did not want the vice presidential nomination but was striving for the kind of publicity that would ensure him a nomination for president even though it might not be until 1936. This brought me to the real question, namely, what kind of personality was this governor? Was he wholly sold on a program of progressive democratization? Or, was his “liberalism” that of a more ambitious politician who was willing to assume an equivocal liberal pose as a practical means to power such as would enable him to impose an extremely reactionary policy later on? Or, was he the governor who found it easier to advocate for charity rather than education? Unfortunately, Puerto Ricans were fed on sentimental phrases, words of courageous, delusional, theoretic remedies, and a bit of temporary relief through private charity while governmental charity went to benefit those who had real estate to enhance and the least need for help. For several years in the 1930s, I broadcasted my thoughts over a radio station in New York City. In several of those broadcasts, I attacked Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., a Protestant, for trying to use the Catholic Church as an asset in his political ambitions. In doing this, I accused him of violating his official oath to uphold the Constitution and the Organic Act of Puerto Rico, both of which specifically prohibited favors to any church. So, what made me reference Puerto Rico? Since I spent the winter months as a resident there until 1932, I wrote of its poverty, unemployment, lack of educational opportunity, homelessness, inadequate housing, and disease. I explained that at its root, the population was growing too much, too fast. The island was simply not capable of feeding its people by relying on a subsistence form of agriculture. 150 Equally disconcerting was the heavy-handed nature of the Catholic Church that controlled education and kept its population singularly dependent on the priests for direction. The examples I noted included the maintenance of a Catholic chapel in the public orphanage; the use of a textbook in the public schools which stated as a fact the performance of alleged miracles by Catholic saints; a bill signed by the governor that provided certain Catholic nuns be accepted as accredited nurses without examination as to educational qualifications and training such as were required of Protestant nurses; and a bill passed in the legislature which gave the Receptionist Fathers real estate worth thousands of dollars. I wrote to numerous individuals hoping to curb Governor Roosevelt’s influence. When he sought $3 million for roads to be built on the island, I asked Senator William H. King of Utah for his help by deflecting any Congressional appropriation to support feeding and educating the children on the island rather than spending it on charity for the rich. “The present proposition to get $3 million from the U.S. with which to build roads will go to permanently enhance the value of land not owned by the underfed masses,” I explained to Senator King. “Most of the money will be spent in the U.S. for tools, mixing machines, automobile trucks, cracked stone, cement, etc. Perhaps a third of it will go to unskilled labor and will be talked about as the justification. And of course, it is something that will give a little bit of temporary relief. I believe that this issue should not be smothered and the half-starving children sacrificed in this way.” I wrote articles as well in protest of Governor Roosevelt’s schemes. Although I received a favorable response from the readers of Margaret Sanger’s Birth Control Review which published one of my articles, it brought a rejoinder from José Enamorado Cuesta of the Nationalist Party. “[Schroeder] does not tell your readers that American capitalism is responsible for everything wrong in Porto Rico today . . . He does not admit that in thirty-four years of American intervention, by a drastic process of legalized assault, the people have been dispossessed of their land and brought to the condition of paupers . . . Our real problem lies in the actual control by American capital of practically all our wealth.” To be honest, Cuesta was correct. In 1932, I wrote numerous congressmen seeking an audit of Governor Roosevelt’s Insular budget due to what I considered were misstatements, inappropriate methods of bookkeeping, and rumors of other irregularities. I also wrote President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt asking for two hours of his time to discuss my concerns. In March 1933, Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes agreed to meet with me. At the close of the interview, I expressed my desire to fill a vacant judgeship as a stepping-stone to the appointment as governor for either the Virgin Islands or Puerto Rico. As to my superior understanding of all the implications of forward-looking liberalism, I pointed to hundreds of my published essays. I received no response. In 1934, I had the opportunity to speak with George H. Dern, Secretary of War, regarding the conditions in Puerto Rico. In the personal interview he gave me, I explained some of the causes for the hatred of Americans by many Puerto Ricans; some of the new and avoidable racial antagonisms that had been created by the United States; and how the “roughneck individualism” of Theodore Roosevelt Jr. had left the population in tatters. I told him that he was the only one in authority good enough to give me a hearing although I began my pleading with President Roosevelt before and after his inauguration. I even appealed to Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt. Yet, everywhere I was blocked by filing clerks. Perhaps that was unavoidable, but I could not accept filing clerks’ decisions as final and preserve any degree of comfort for myself. I asked if the Federal Government under the New Deal would show its confidence in brains by making such an investigation as I had 151 indicated. Or would we have a continuance of roughneck individualism tempered only with more clarity and more fine phrases? I never did get a satisfactory answer from anyone. Instead, I was shuffled from pillar to post with no one taking responsibility for providing a definitive answer to my questions. Virgin Islands Because of the treatment of the Negroes in the British and American island possessions, I urged Roger Baldwin to consider focusing the ACLU on the deprivation of their rights and their generally poor treatment by the white population. In 1922, I testified before a joint congressional committee on the civil government of the Virgin Islands. As with most of my pleas for reform, I asked for improvements in education as the ideal platform for bringing about meaningful and systemic change. In 1929, I culled a few hundred books from my private library in Cos Cob and shipped them to the Frederiksted library. About half of them were rejected as unfit. This censorship is most extraordinary and I wrote Paul M. Pearson, Governor of the Virgin Islands, to find the how and why of it. It appeared that Miss Edith Moon, a librarian, had made the decision to remove the books and I called attention to this and her evident responsibility for the censorship. I then appealed to Governor Pearson to discover the facts and apply the appropriate remedy to preclude a recurrence. Governor Pearson replied that there had been no censorship on my books, either by Miss Moon or the library committee. “These individuals made a selection of books which in their judgment were in most demand or best suited for library purposes. They did this just as you would make a selection from a bookstore or a catalog. The books you do not choose are not books you necessarily disapprove of. You choose books that meet your taste or judgment. Our libraries are small, and our reading public is small; so that we have only a few tastes to meet.” I responded to the Governor questioning the truthfulness of his explanation. “I tell you confidentially that I almost suspect her [Miss Moon] of being the victim of those mental disturbances which so often come to women at the time of their period, and I think she has fooled you with fine words.” I was so concerned with the problems in the Islands that I sought the support of President Hoover, Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Frederick Paul Keppel of the Carnegie Corporation. Nothing came of these efforts. Receiving no satisfaction from my numerous complaints, I urged that the Virgin Islands be placed under the Administration of the Navy Department. This recommendation received a hasty reply from H. M. Lamers, Commander, U. S. Navy, stating that there was no intention on the part of the government to return the Virgin Islands to naval administration. The only benefit I got from my concerns was the reinforcement of my belief that no Catholic should ever be elected as president of the United States. My fear of an Al Smith government that could give the Catholic Church a special standing was something constantly on my mind. When Franklin D. Roosevelt became president, I hoped for an appointment as governor of the Virgin Islands. Again, nothing happened. Even when I sought a judgeship, nothing was forthcoming. I found Roosevelt a huge disappointment. He did not democratize the Virgin Islands as I had hoped; nor did he educate the people about self-government. This caused me to write an article titled “First U.S. Fascist Dictatorship” in 1935 charging the Roosevelt administration with allowing Governor Paul Martin Pearson to impose a system of economic and political despotism 152 over the islands. I accused Roosevelt of “psychological immaturity” and “unresolved contradictions” and concluded that his New Deal politics was no kinder and no more mature than what the Republicans were offering as an alternative. At the time, I felt that Roosevelt was too busy listening to the noises that came from Washington to hear any of the groans fifteen hundred miles away. Yes! The first United States Fascist Dictator was functioning not in Washington but in the Virgin Islands. The U. S. Incorporated had its headquarters in the U.S. Virgin Islands and exercised all manner of extra-territorial powers. Under cover of the big guns in Washington, Pearson’s despotism stealthily gained power. It was not the cooperative commonwealth of our socialist friends. It was at the other extreme from a dictatorship of the proletariat. It represented the re-establishment of feudal-minded, medieval absolutism. It was a case of state capitalism with all powers, both political and economic, vested in one man, the feudal lord, Governor Paul M. Pearson. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini had usurped more power than had been conferred upon Governor Pearson by the laws of the U.S. This dictatorship was the result of the New Deal and was a marvel of its kind in the scope of the unlimited authority vested in a dictator. It seemed incredible that within our U.S. in a time of peace such unrestricted power was allowed to exist. The Depression When Herbert Hoover was president, he informed us that the Depression was only psychological, seemingly adopting the Christian Scientist’s theory of destroying our social and economic catastrophe by denying its existence. If Roosevelt had been as backward in his thought as Hoover, then it may be that he, too, saw no real remedy for our psycho-economic afflictions. If so, then he knew no better way of dealing with our problems than to use the old magical method of playing tricks on the mob’s suggestibility using modern legislation hocus-pocus. Roosevelt became president at about the correct psychological moment; that is when our mob panic had about reached its lowest ebb, which was the turning point in the mob’s psychological cycle. To be sure, he was an experienced past grand master in the technique of hypnotic suggestion. Through long practice, his actions had become so habitual and instinctive that he must have been wholly unconscious of the trickery of the methods and the delusional elements in his efforts. Roosevelt is generally credited with being one of the world’s super-leaders. If the greatest quantity of popular applause is conclusive proof of that fact, his reputation as a super-leader was beyond question. If we wish to get behind the noise of apparent popularity to make a more accurate appraisal of his leadership, then we must inquire into its quality and perhaps contrast that with some conflicting conceptions of leadership. Did he propose a more intelligent system of education? No. Was he interested in accelerating the natural processes of psychological evolution or the democratization of welfare? No. Was he prompted by the belief that playing the role of a national and international Santa Claus was the most efficient way of prolonging the present system of local and international exploitation? Yes. Experts maintain that the greatest contemporary popularity can come only from playing down the childish emotionalism and wishful thinking of the underdeveloped mob. Accordingly, it can be argued that President Roosevelt could not have attained his extraordinary popularity except by functioning on the lower stages of mob emotionalism to get self-glorification. From this viewpoint, Roosevelt was like all politicians in that, as demagogues, they were always playing 153 tricks on the emotions of the crowd. Whether this is done by an appeal to love or hate, by slogans, epitaphs, or learned special pleading, does not alter the case. Such jealous persons also remind us that many comedians, clowns, circus managers, crooked politicians, honest demagogues, medical and political quacks, big advertisers, ignorant clerics, messianic maniacs, religious lunatics, and several varieties of dictators and absolutists have each had their day of popular acclaim and a large devoted following. In some sense, therefore, each one of such persons was also a leader. Public acclaim is a precarious standard for judging the relative merits of a leader. My concerns were not specifically aimed at Roosevelt but at the larger goal of clarifying our conception of leadership in general and the purposes for which governments exist or might exist. From this viewpoint, Roosevelt was merely a popular and conspicuous hook upon which to hang the message about leadership. Speaking of demagogues, there were few people I detested more than Father Charles Coughlin, the Canadian-American Catholic “radio priest” who established a political organization called the National Union for Social Justice. Once a supporter of Roosevelt and the New Deal, he later broke from him by supporting certain policies of Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, including antisemitism. Disgusted with his behavior, I published a statement in The Truth Seeker in 1939 which I titled “The Gospel of Coughlinism and Catholicism.” It was intended to show the utter repugnance and contempt the priest had for democratic values. I therefore put into words what I thought Caughlin believed: We are the undying enemies of racism and antisemitism, but we must help all races to accept Jesus as their Savior. We distinguish between Jews as a race and the racial Jew who has accepted true Christianity. We are patiently tolerant of all evils that we have not the power to suppress, or which, for the moment, we do not find it expedient to suppress; but it is an unpardonable sin to tolerate Satanic error, which threatens to destroy the Christian spiritual welfare, if and when we halve the power to destroy them. We believe in tolerance, but Absolute Truth cannot tolerate theological or moral errors which it has the power to suppress. The only intolerant persons are those who denounce such a practice as a persecution. We believe in the sacredness of conscience—but all consciences are not equally sacred. We denounce the claims of conscience made by the emissaries of Satan who promote spiritual errors, which imperil the everlasting soul of True Christians, i.e., Catholics. We believe in education, but it must be education in promotion of the Only True Religion. By divine obligation, such education is the exclusive function of the Only True Church and its priesthood. We believe in scientific research, but such research must ever be the willing servant of the Only True Religion and Church and never contradict anything made known by Divine revelation. 154 We believe in the freedom of Religion, but not of “religions,” which falsely reject the saving power of God, through Jesus His only begotten Son, and His Duly authorized priesthood. We believe in The Church, but not in churches which are the synagogues of Satan, because they reject the ordinations of the only authorized spokesmen for God, as well as His Holy sacraments, and His only begotten Son. We believe in True Christianity, and there is no Christianity in those who reject the only living voice of our Heavenly Father. We believe in all governments, but we would make all of them Christian governments. These will function as the secular arm of the Righteous Government of God on earth, to enforce His Will, as that is made known through His duly authorized Ambassador, the Pope. We believe in our America, and we love it so much that we wish to make it our Christian (Catholic) America. We believe in democracy, and because of our love for it, we will make it a Christian Democracy, in which the Will of God and His Social Justice shall reign supreme, as it is interpreted by the infallible, unchangeable, and irreformable Ambassador of God. We are opposed to every kind and form of internationalism which is always the creation of fallible men working in the interests of Satan. We favor the supernationalism of Almighty God, whose will is made known through His Only True Church and who has the right to rule over and within all the governments of the earth. We love the U.S. Constitution but will make it more Christian by eliminating the satanic devices for the separation of the State from the beneficent guidance of the Only True Church, the Catholic Church. We love our country but will perfect it and make it worthy of greater love, by changing it to improve upon those numerous near-Christian governments of Europe, which have adopted the corporative form, without submitting completely to the dictatorship of God. We are unalterably opposed to every form of human dictatorship but not to the dictatorship of Almighty God which functions through his duly accredited Ambassadors. We believe in and give a patriotic devotion to all the leaders of whatever nation we live in, but hold, as a matter of conscience, that all authority in Heaven and Earth must be acknowledged in God and His Church; and we are bound to proclaim His Lordship over all of human life, including politics and ideologies. This is the supreme test of allegiance to the supernatural government of God, through His only true Church, the Catholic Church. Lytton Report In 1931, the League of Nations sought to evaluate the so-called Mukden Incident which led to Japan’s seizure of Manchuria. The five-member commission, headed by Lord Lytton, undertook a fact-finding mission that was intended among other objectives to defuse the hostility 155 between Japan and China. The report did not address the cause of the Mukden Incident but merely stated without comment the Japanese position that the Chinese were responsible. In September 1932, the Japanese government extended diplomatic recognition to its puppet government and when the League of Nations considered a motion to condemn Japan as the aggressor, the Japanese delegation withdrew from the League. Shortly afterward, the U.S. announced the Stimson Doctrine, which warned Japan that what it had gained by conquest would not be recognized. In a letter I addressed to President Roosevelt on March 25, 1933, I explained that as a specialist in psychology with an emphasis on maturing intellectual methods, I was offering my experience to formulate a new kind of review of the Lytton Report and the Japanese reply. Everyone has evaded the question as to how and why the Japanese psychological imperative arose. Lord Lytton used a special plea based upon abstractions and evasions of fact, and then many were surprised that it did not fool the Japanese into a change of policy. From my point of view, the peace machinery was inert and without virtue. Any kind of peace at any price was not to be viewed as an end in itself, but the demand for such was a pathological symptom. Such peace could not produce the psychological imperatives that accelerated the natural process of our maturing intellectual methods, upon which alone a better world depended. I also wrote Nicholas Murray Butler, Director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, condemning the methods used by the Lytton Commission and offering to supplant it with a new form of review. Henry Haskell, Assistant to the Director, met with me to discuss my proposal. Afterwards, he wrote saying that my proposal “hints in a general way at a method or methods to remove the mistakes in the work of the Commission but I found nothing that was constructive or even suggestive of a concrete method. I do not think your memorandum in its present form would make any appreciable impression on the minds of very busy men to whom it might be presented. Either I was unable to comprehend the constructive application of your point of view or you did not make it clear. Of course, you must be the one to judge as to the uselessness of further attempt.” I was disappointed but not surprised by the response. Some insist that we must have a world government to gain world peace. Others insist that we must have world peace first, to get world government. Here is the old egg-and-hen problem all over again. I suspect that if we had a world population composed of well-unified personalities, instead of “split personalities,” and if these well-unified personalities were psychologically mature, we could have peace either with or without world government. All past wars have been fought for the supremacy of the ideological symptoms of the “split personalities” who were the real “leaders.” As I look back over history, I see more or less blind striving of the oppressed ones, toward the democratization of welfare. The obvious contention was against a particular mode of oppression, not against all oppression—not for democratized welfare, as such. With a better understanding of psycho-social evolution and its democratizing processes, our leaders could help the masses to adjust to it. For such persons, all specific aims would be subordinated to the better adjustment to that “law.” Even international differences would be held subordinate to the desire for a better adjustment to that “law.” Thus, a general, lasting peace without fear or force, could be achieved. World War II When I listened to Adolph Hitler speaking from Berlin about the Czechoslovakian Crisis, he reminded me of Emma Goldman, the anarchist whose speeches I listened to many times before 156 1910. Her ideas, like Hitler’s, were commonplace, but they had a great effect on those who thought only through their emotions. Hitler excelled in the adjectives of vituperation which he used. His fanaticism was matched only by the hysterical enthusiasm of his audience. In recent years I have often listened to our great political conventions and the enthusiasm of their audiences and I am sure that the German people are just as insane and morbidly suggestible as our American mobs of respectability. The difference is only in the symptoms. Americans in their political conventions adopt very similar mob insanity except that it is relatively harmless when compared with Hitler and his audience. The German mob responded to Hitler just as our American mobs responded to harangues during the First World War. Hitler had been adroit in keeping the German populace busy venting their unconscious hate upon someone. For the moment Jews were forgotten and Czechoslovaks became the objects of hate. All this had been accomplished in little more time than it took us in the U.S. to center our formerly suppressed hate upon the Germans during the First World War. I also listened to the speech of Premier Mussolini on June 10, 1940, when he announced the entry of Italy into the Second World War. I heard the wild applause that accompanied practically every sentence he spoke. After some weeks of preparation by press and radio, all the suppressed hate of the Italian people was directed against the French and English people. It seemed to me like the outbursts of insane mobs. I have heard similar outbursts of unrestrained mob emotions at athletic fields where crowds got their exercise by proxy, or at our great political conventions where crowds go to register the results of their thinking by proxy. When Germany invaded Russia, I felt that Hitler would not have taken this step except out of desperation for food and oil needed for his success against Britain. Furthermore, I felt that Russia would be defeated by its leaders. If, on the other hand, Russia had the necessary military equipment and was willing to ignore disproportionate losses of men, Russian success was possible. Until then, crazed millions of Germans and Russian soldiers would attempt to exterminate each other. Among our people, the unconscious sadists were already caught up in the fever of their blood lust and were fast driving the lesser psychotics into an excited frame of mind where we too would emulate Hitler’s blood lust. If only we could have remained open to an acceleration of the democratization of education, work, and welfare. But the neurotic leaders of our moron civilization would not permit it. We, too, became infected with mob madness. I am beginning to wonder if our mad leaders who promised to “save civilization” with blood, explosives, and whatever else they could find in our so-called civilization were aware of the long-range effects on our future. When President Roosevelt wrote a letter modifying the Neutrality Act to permit U.S. merchant ships to travel to belligerent parts, he argued that refusal to pass the bill would have a bad effect on the morale of the British and give much satisfaction to the leaders of Germany. I felt from the start that Roosevelt was making our entrance into this world war without a declaration of war by constitutional authority. If Roosevelt had intelligence enough to see that the right to declare war rested only in the U.S. Congress, then he would not have violated his oath of office. It is always so with psychotic thinkers who determine their actions not by the facts but by the feelingful joys of other lunatics. If President Roosevelt had been wholly sane and more intelligent, he would have been ashamed to have made such an argument. On August 9, 1941, the “Joint Declaration” by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Winston Churchill, otherwise known as the “Atlantic Charter,” outlined the aims of both the 157 United States and the United Kingdom in the postwar world. I renamed the eight points the “World New Deal” because of what it revealed. I was not impressed. First, it declared their countries sought no aggrandizement, territorial or otherwise. What that meant was simply that England and the United States were satisfied with their present advantages secured by past aggressions and would remain content so long as their advantages were not threatened. Second, they declared no territorial changes that did not accord with the freely expressed wishes of the peoples concerned. This did not pledge us to approve all territorial changes by modern aggressors but only those possessions previously acquired and rightfully held and exploited in perpetuity. Third, they respected the rights of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they would live and restore self-government to those who were forcefully deprived. That applied only to those acquired since Versailles. It did not include the peoples of India, Arabia, and the aborigines of the western hemisphere. Fourth, they promised to endeavor to further the enjoyment of all States, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access on equal terms, to the trade and raw materials of the world. Implied in this resolution was the intent to destroy the rights now claimed by small states over the undeveloped resources that may be necessary to the industrialized nations. Fifth, they desired to bring about the fullest collaboration between all nations in the economic field with the object of securing improved labor standards, economic adjustments, and social security. Once again, this meant that we did not promise to collaborate for equality in the standards of living for the people of all countries. We are even less interested in the democratization of worldwide welfare than we are in accelerating the democratization of welfare in our countries. International inequalities of welfare are indispensable to the maintenance of our own internationally privileged position. Sixth, after the final destruction of the Nazi tyranny, they hope to see established a peace that will afford to all nations the means of dwelling in safety within their boundaries and which will afford assurance that all the men in all the land may live out their lives in freedom from fear and want. This meant that we pledged ourselves to establish such a thoroughly democratized welfare that if any class should aspire to better its present position related to other classes, such a group would of necessity be regarded guilty of using democratic forms to destroy the status quo which is treason to democracy itself. Seventh, such a peace should enable all men to traverse the high seas and oceans without hindrance. To this end, every family who desires to enjoy the sea will be privileged with a private yacht and a private harbor. Eighth, they believe that all of the nations of the world must come to the abandonment of the use of force. This high-minded objective meant the one-sided disarmament provided by the Treaty of Versailles was an eminent success and justification of this measure. Democracies have shown that it is easier and cheaper to fool people into giving privileges and power to the right people than to achieve them by force. The democracies have found that any political or economic habit, once established, can be maintained with greater ease and peace by the trickery of ‘inspirational psychology’ than by force alone, or the open threat of force. 158 The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor caught our armed forces napping and wrought enormous havoc. The press and public speakers denounced the treachery. Ironically, such treachery that gives a belligerent an advantage is highly praised if it is exercised after the war has begun. If it is proper after the war is begun, and if war is ever to be treated as justifiable, then I cannot see why such trickery is not equally justifiable as the first attack of the war. Perhaps, if we must blame anyone, it should be our armed forces for not being alert. I felt that the Japanese would probably use German tactics against our outposts in the Philippines. If they did and concentrated hard enough, it seemed to me that they would take those islands. Given the supply task for reinforcements, it was unlikely that we could hold them. That raised the question as to why we were there in the first place. When the Philippines fell into the hands of the Japanese, some American historians will doubtless write a glowing chapter on the zeal and patriotism of its Philippine and continental defenders. However, no one will tell future generations that all this sacrifice and heroism was made for the sacred profits of the sugar companies and American big business and that their lives were the price we paid for our treaty violations. The attack of Japan upon the island possessions of the U.S. saddened me. I had hoped—it was a fading hope—that somehow, we might still escape our active participation in this war. I listened to the radio broadcast of President Roosevelt to the joint session of the Congress of the U.S. in which he asked that body to declare that a state of war exists between Japan and the U.S. His speech was followed by extraordinary applause and exulting shouts of approval. I asked myself why were those present not saddened by the calamitous conflict that we entered. When I entered my eightieth year of existence with the whole world immersed in the Second World War, the pond outside my window was almost without a ripple and the sun was bright and warm. But a dark cloud of human passion and blood lust hung over humanity. Witness our prodding and challenging of Japan into making the first overt attack, and witness also our secret violation of neutrality as a means to the same end. In this manner, our “democratic” dictator got us into an undisclosed shooting war with Germany before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. This was without the approval of Congress and in support of the secret violation of international law. Nevertheless, I was wholly at peace within myself, resigned to accept whatever was the inevitable consequence to me. All of the inanimate nature and all the “lower animals” seemed to be neutrals. I, too, considered myself almost neutral. Only a little feeling disturbed my complete intellectual neutrality, my agnosticism. Out of the emotional turmoil of the almost universal insanity, I found nothing of use to benefit sanity and intelligence. The mob’s emotions had wallowed in the slogans and idealisms of all the sadistic leaders in every nation. We have all loved and lauded creeds, ceremonials, and rituals that carried the democratic label. In our schools, we have taught flag worship, but not democratic cooperation to promote a democratic conception of welfare. Unintelligent reformers have sought to promote democracy by changing the political machinery, rituals, and ceremonies when all that was necessary was an education for democratic-mindedness. Politicians and lawyers have praised the general democratic framework of our government while explaining away its most democratic features. We feel glorious about the meaningless symbols of liberty and democracy and promote hate instead of using the true meaning of the Bill of Rights in the Constitution to further democratize society. We punish those who desecrate the flag which is only a symbol of democracy and reward those who destroy the substance of democracy with the aid of legislative and judicial sanctions. We have 159 mistakenly called it democracy when aristocratic special privileges are tolerated and perpetuated through democratic machinery. Try as some did, democracy has remained an empty slogan by the use of which we have enslaved the masses. Its machinery has not been a means for liberation or further democratization as it might have been. Education has inculcated the slave virtues as if we lived in a static society. Education has not helped us to mature methods of thinking about an evolving democracy or its social problems. We have applauded the word evolution but never sought to understand its meaning as it applied to human nature. Our democratic pretenses have only masked our infantile aristocratic desire to get something for nothing, no matter at what cost to the sub-privileged or the orderly process of real democratization. Even its victims have been content with the illusion of sometimes becoming one of the privileged ones. No! Democracy has not failed. It has never been tried by real democrats. It was no more on trial under Franklin D. Roosevelt than under Adolph Hitler. Both used democratic forms to satisfy their lust for power and their love of approval. Neither depended upon nor sought to promote democratic-mindedness. When Hitler induced the voters to express their approval of him, this did not mean that there was much or any democratic-mindedness among them. Neither did their vote express any higher degree of intelligence than blind psychogenic fear and compulsion. When a president of the United States made no explanation for the basis of his plans or of the processes by which he believed they would cure booms and panics (our psycho-economic ills) then he and his brain trust were not functioning on a scientific level. If instead of such methods, he used emotionally laden slogans and special pleading, he was fooling the people into approving him. Such approval did not mean that there was any democratic-mindedness in America. Neither did such supporting votes express any praiseworthy degree of intelligence in the voter. In other words, our feudal-minded masters applaud democratic machinery so long as it can be used to uphold undemocratic systems of education and welfare and the perpetuation of the privileges of the few. Abraham Lincoln said: “You may fool all the people some of the time; you can even fool some of the people all the time; but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time.” That was before the days of radio and modern newspapers. I say: You can fool most of the people most of the time, and the rest of the people all of the time. In effect, it is the same as if you could fool all of the people all of the time. Don’t blame the fools for their foolability. Primarily, the fault rests with the clergymen because they are the principal promoters of morbid psychology in the young, through a “moral training” based upon artificially imposed fears and deluding hopes, where they should teach only respect for “natural law.” Secondarily, the fault is with our educational system, where they confirm, and glorify the intellectual symptoms of this emotional disorder, instead of helping the young to outgrow it. Next comes the periodical press and radio broadcasters, who play upon this artificial, deluding fear psychology, for their gain, and at the same time intensify the deluding fears, and standardize the symptoms of the crowd’s sick emotions. So our wholesome infantilism develops into a general mental disorder. Some become “educated” egomaniacs, who fool nearly all of the people nearly all of the time. The most “sacred” right of every American is the right to be a fool. So our children are “morally” trained and “educated” utilizing pedagogical indoctrination and “inspirational psychology” to choose the “right” misleader and to be morbidly suggestible. Thereafter they buy only the right soap, heavenly lipstick, and socially correct laxatives, and become infallibly right as 160 to which of hundreds of disagreeing religious sects has the only “infallible, unchangeable, and irreformable” theology. They reject all new ideas as dangerous, which do not fit into the framework of “legitimate” debate about the relative importance of Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dum. All other ideas create a “clear and present danger” and must be suppressed. Although this was the justification for every tyranny, from the beginning of time to the Spanish Inquisition and Adolf Hitler, yet, when enshrined in a decision of our Supreme Court, every fool “liberal” approves this painless destruction of our Freedom of Speech, as the sacred duty of all loyal fools. All “good liberals” enjoy an illusional freedom of speech, as the sacred duty of all loyal fools. All “good liberals” enjoy an illusional freedom of speech by auto-suggestion, supported by the fact that they have nothing vital and new to say. So it is that we all enjoy the sacred right to be fools, and to be constitutionally protected against the “clear and present danger” of being disillusioned as to ideas that are useful to our misleaders. Here in the United States, we have probably the best democratic political machinery that has been devised. However, that democratic machinery has never been used by democratically minded voters to hasten the natural process of democratization. On the contrary, democratic forms and ceremonies have always been used as if they were ends in themselves; or as if they must prevent further democratization. We glorify so much of democracy as has been achieved, and then perpetuate or increase the existing and undemocratic privileges and prerogatives No one, in the place of power, has ever proposed to use the government to complete the democratization of education; or to educate for democratic mindedness, or to maximize cooperation as a means to outgrow infantile parasitism, nor to use the ballot as a means of accelerating the natural process of the democratization of welfare. Our “leaders” think of democratic forms and ceremonies as a final and static achievement, instead of as a means for the acceleration of democratization The intensity of our devotion to the word “democracy” or democratic forms and ceremonies, is apt to be an exact measure of our fear and aversion to more democratic-mindedness and its fruits. For the further democratization of education, cooperation, and welfare, it is indispensable. With its amendments, our Constitution is the best political machinery thus far devised. Nevertheless, we have many undemocratic practices, both outside of and under claims of legal sanction. Negroes, Jews, the yellow races, foreigners, Catholics, atheists, and radicals are often denied equality of rights, and of opportunity for education or welfare. Also, here the undemocratic disparity of welfare between the richest and the poorest is probably greater than in any country in the world, at any time in history. When a Civil Rights Bill is before the U. S. Senate, the right of minority control using a filibuster is more sacred than the constitutional rights of the oppressed. The best of constitutions is not self-enforcing. To make democracy work, we need a big majority of more democratically minded voters. For education to that end, pedagogical indoctrination is pernicious, because it promotes only fearful or wishful thinking, not objective factual thinking. We need a reconditioning of the emotions, to minimize the “split personalities,” and substitute well-unified personalities, with a high degree of psychological maturity and intelligence. This means a new kind of education, in harmony with a fairly well-understood theory of evolutionary psychology; an education to mature the impulses and intellectual methods of the learner, and so to accomplish the natural processes of democratization and psycho-social evolution. The great mass of our people was temporarily united by an unreasonable and unenlightened acceptance of President Roosevelt as the latest economic savior of the nation, the idealized symbol of our wishful dreaming. Delusionally, many glorified him as if he had already brought the realization of our dreams. When enough hold that hallucination, it will be as real and as intelligent 161 as the dancing manias of the Middle Ages, the Crusades for the Holy Land, or the so-called Mississippi Bubble. The heavenly joys of 1928-29 will be at hand once more. Unless that pleasant symptom of mob insanity can be restored or we can be diverted by entry into another world war, then Roosevelt will be a fallen idol. Whether we knew it or not, we were now the slaves of a dictatorship. In this respect, it made no real difference whether we were coerced into accepting our leader by threats of Castor oil or concentration camps or fooled into such acceptance by slogans and other forms of “inspirational psychology” which were effective because of our suggestibility and ignorance. Roosevelt belonged mentally with the polite feudal-minded muckraking reformers of the last century in that he dreamed of nothing better than their superficial reformist dreams. His real difference with Hoover was only one of personal ambition and a difference of technique for perpetuating the very ancient and honorable conception of sentimentalism to sanctify the same old greed for profits. Neither of them could imagine a more mature conception of honesty, economic justice, or a society that would require cooperation for the acceleration of the natural processes for the democratization of education and welfare. The president’s “brain trusters” were equally blind. They conceived of social progress as an external change from the status of a feudal slave to that of a chattel slave, and then to “animated machinery.” In all this, the evolution of human nature was regarded as unimportant. All that Roosevelt gave us was a benevolent feudal or fascist dictatorship and a sample of U.S. Incorporated. It was all very pathetic. According to the dominant sentiments of the day, President Roosevelt was the world’s most successful politician because he had made more political precedents, initiated more reforms at home, and achieved more acclaim abroad than had ever come to any other man. Were his achievements of such a character that future historians would say that he was also preeminent in promoting sanity with psycho-social intelligence and evolution? Or, will they say that he did not offer one single suggestion for the avoidance of the Second World War? Will they say he was a successful promoter of the greatest sadistic orgy the world has ever known with an extraordinary aftermath of intensified worldwide insanity and a more intense and more conscious emotional depreciation of the human intellect than ever was known before in this world? I leave that for the reader to decide. President Harry S. Truman received what was probably the most astonishing letter of his career. The five-page letter, dated April 22, 1950, came from me. In it, I asked him to appoint a committee of psychoanalyzed psychiatrists and charge them with the responsibility of examining whether the educational theory, technique, and goals of our public, private, and parochial schools and all colleges and universities, constitute Public Enemy No. 1. I claimed that because of ignorance of evolutionary psychology, our current educational methodologies promoted only “split personalities.” Thus, our educational forces were responsible for creating the psychological imperatives that expressed themselves in intolerance, juvenile delinquency, marital maladjustment, crimes, riots, revolutions, wars, and overcrowded mental hospitals. In my letter, I questioned whether or not any federal aid to education should be given without an investigation into the issues I raised. The world’s social ills could not be minimized except by an education that was based on evolutionary psychology. Its immediate aim should be to develop the scientific temperament and method, especially toward emotions, which centered around sex. Sexual irregularities resulted in many undesired pregnancies and the spread of venereal 162 infection. The social consequences of all these were very trifling as compared with the psycho-neurotics produced by other irregularities. I also demanded that federal judges and members of Congress be compelled to demonstrate whether or not they had the emotional and rational qualifications to fulfill their responsibilities. My kind of arrogance would perhaps offend a judge of small caliber; but for the other sort, there was at least food for thought in this newer viewpoint. I was therefore of the opinion that a time will come when no man will be considered fit for the judicial bench who had not first submitted himself to an expert psychanalyst to better understand the source and behavior of every impulse at work within him; that he had outgrown or solved every emotional conflict, and had a thorough knowledge of the use of the scientific method as applied to legal problems. In other words, my optimism was so great that I once thought utopia was almost attainable. If given a push down the right road, great things were possible. How wrong I was to believe it. Cos Cob By 1936, both Nancy and I were in poor health and stopped our practice of wintering on the Islands. I continued to write and lecture but what income we lived on came from the sale of my father’s estate and investments I had made in Utah decades earlier. The income, albeit small, kept us out of the poor house. Although many of my books were now in libraries, they were mainly donated books and not anything that generated income for us to live on. As much as I tried, the ACLU refused to reprint my earlier editions. To be sure, the Depression hurt us, but Nancy and I were grateful that we had our home. Millions were not so fortunate. Still, it angered me that I was forced to remain on the extreme edge of scholarly recognition and respectability. I continued to stitch together manuscripts, often mixing newer articles with older ones as I sought potential publishers. A few liked what I wrote. Ilsley Boone, the charismatic Baptist minister. The advocate for nudism, and owner of Outdoor Publishing Corporation which published The Nudist (which later became Sunshine and Health), he was one of the few who continued to accept my work. So supportive he became that I considered ceding my publication rights to him to establish a “Next Century Fund” to arrange and publish my works. He even offered to pay me $200 per month for the remainder of my life on condition of turning over my publication rights to him. I refused but he nonetheless supported Nancy and me for several years with monthly checks. Another supporter was Samuel Rosenbloom, editor of The Health Clarion, a monthly magazine Figure 10: Cos Cob, Connecticut 163 published by Healthful Living Inc. of New York. In both their magazines, I focused on healthy-mindedness, urged psychoanalysis, and reached back into my past to draw examples for my articles. Unfortunately, Nancy’s failing eyesight made it difficult for her to put my written words into type. Lacking the money to pay for paper, I even resorted to using the back sides of older unpublished manuscripts. I tried to sell the house and land for Nancy and me to live in an old folks’ home but I had no luck getting it accomplished. No one was interested in purchasing the place. My income in 1939 was about $2,000. In 1940, it was only $1,400. On October 12, 1940, I applied for a Guggenheim Award to work in the field of evolutionary and genetic psychology. My object was to complete twenty-five years of independent and uncompensated work in the field, and of introducing that approach to education and the social sciences. This meant offering a new understanding of human nature and urging that every social problem must be seen as a problem of our slowly changing and evolving human nature—a problem of mental hygiene and of evolutionary psychology. The project was titled “Toward a Definition of Psychoanalysis and Evolutionary Psychology.” I also wanted to include a study of race prejudice. Having spent numerous winters in the West Indies, I felt confident that I could provide new insight. Once again, I was turned down. A year later, I applied to the fellowship program of the Julius Rosenwald Fund but failed there as well. In April 1941, a fire raced through the woods in the back of our home and killed off most of the trees which gave our land a high speculative value for some future building sites. How such fires start here is always a mystery and it might as well be so, for what good could it do to send some poor devil to jail for starting it? However, if it were possible to recover damages in a civil suit, I might welcome it. I had hoped that the sale of this land would supply enough to keep us alive a while longer. With the sale value gone, it caused us to consider choosing between the poor house and suicide. To scratch out a living, I began sending boxes of my books to dozens of colleges and public libraries across the country asking for a donation if they chose to accept them into their collections. Many simply returned them stating that such purchases were counter to their purchasing policies which required requisitions. Others purchased selectively those that they wanted and returned the rest. There were some, of course, like the librarian at Beloit College who returned the entire shipment, indicating that they had “no place” in their collection. In the end, the effort produced little, if any, added income. At the war’s end, I tried not to be bitter, but I was finding it difficult to stay financially afloat. I owed taxes on unproductive land that I was unable to sell. Both Nancy and I were losing our eyesight and Nancy was constantly ill. I needed an eye operation to work, and I needed money for the grocer and part-time help for Nancy. To be truthful, I became despondent and saw little that encouraged me to believe that the world had learned anything from the experience. In truth, I became pessimistic about democracy and the ideals to which I had devoted my life. Humanity cannot win when all our leaders are seeking to maintain the free enterprise system of exploitation. That they are willing to grant a charity—security for their continued privileges—deceived only the ignorant “democratic” voters in our alleged democracies. Nevertheless, the same old crowd of feudal-minded exploiters remained in the saddle and dictated a peace that attempted to reestablish as near as possible the conditions of 1918. It seems all right if employers want more profits but wrong when the workers want more wages. If this was the war to promote democratization, then why are Negroes still being lynched in the South? 164 On Reflection As I look around my study surrounded by thousands of books packed tightly in bookcases that line the walls, I see on my desk the outlines of books not written, revisions upon revisions of unpublished essays, reprints of my articles, scrapbooks filled with clippings of my life that began in Utah, thousands of laconics which took hundreds of hours to produce (and for what?), and box after box of correspondence with people near and far. There is even a box that includes letters of rejection. Like everything else, I cannot bear to throw them away as they represent an embarrassing but real part of my life. To date, I have published articles on Protestantism and atheism; law and anarchism; general medicine and neurology; socialism and sociology; syphilis and medico-legal subjects; academic and abnormal psychology; religious psychology and urology; psychiatry and psychoanalysis; economics and eugenics; laborers and capitalists; philosophy and Buddhism; the seven arts and sex; and birth control and the single tax. My literary works have been wholly devoted to the liberation of mankind from the tyrannies of governments, fears, and superstitions. In short, I have spent most of my life making the world saner for democratization. I tried to promote the process of democratization when all around me people were slackers in the cause of democracy and were discouraging me. Some resented my effort because they were convinced that democracy was already sane and safe; yes, too safe, and established in its final essence. Others said we had too much of it and the world was already too safe for those cranks who were insisting upon ever more democracy. At each stage of my development, I acted with little regard for those things which most people craved. I acted upon my cravings. Usually, these led me to conclude with thoughts that I now regard as having more wholesome emotions and a little greater psychological maturity than was in evidence around me. I recalled having tried most of the “vices” at least once and others much more often. The greater number supplied only illusional pleasures and those vices that I continued to indulge caused me to look upon them as being more intelligent conduct than I found among my moralistic friends and neighbors. I learned to ignore their moralistic absolutes and later developed a thorough amoral philosophy of life to reinforce my well-developed amoral temperament. When I entered my eighty-sixth year, I found it fitting that I make some record of the kind of life that I have and have not lived. To be sure, I never tried to live a “great life.” Ever since my eighteenth year, I have tried to live as intelligently as I knew how. I never conformed to public opinion as if it were authoritative. Sometimes, however, I conformed as a matter of temporary expedience. I conformed to non-essentials to make my more important iconoclasms more effective. My few youthful efforts to play the game of politics were failures. Except for a little applause and experience, it was a waste of my time. Had I obtained office it might have made my life valueless to me as well as useless to society. That is due to differences in our standard of values. Some regard it as worse than useless now. Surely, my life has been almost useless from my point of view, at least as far as the present is concerned. I still hope that it will have some social value in the future. I have ever sought to enlarge my understanding of democratization and feel sure that my best work remains yet to be done. I believe this is so because I have recently achieved a clear insight into the psychological approach to human problems and their importance. I have 165 just entered upon the task of projecting the psychogenetic viewpoint more thoroughly into philosophy and the social sciences than ever before. From the conventional point of view, I have been an economic failure. For thirty years my living costs have kept me within the wages of a skilled laborer. I have been too busy to ever hold a public office, own an automobile, learn to drive one, or play a game of bridge or golf. Instead, I spent an average of ten hours a day doing research and writing. Over the years, hundreds of my essays were published in a variety of magazines. At the same time, the total income from my literary work was never over two hundred and fifty dollars in any one year. Nevertheless, I loved my work so much that the kind of vacations that are enjoyed by others would bore me. In early April of 1950, Nancy died. As I explained to a friend, she was a very helpful companion. Without her, I could not have done as much work as I accomplished. But life still goes on. I had an offer on the house but chose to reject it. I now plan to stay at Cos Cob until the end. With the aid of a few friends, a collection of my essays was published titled What About You? My Life After Death On April 16, 1952, at the age of eighty-seven, I prepared my will. In it, I gave everything I possessed to newspaperman Lesley Kuhn, and educator, poet, and farmer Ethel Clyde to arrange my writings and designate Ethel to write my “official” biography. In response to a request from Kuhn, I provided one last vision and sense of my relative importance. I have lived through and learned much from my unusually varied personal experiences. After Nancy’s death, I had several invitations to live with friends of ours. I declined them because they necessitated making a new start with practically no chance to carry forward the work with which I am obsessed. Just staying alive without hope of doing a maximum of socially useful work has no lure for me. For sixty years I have lived a controversial intellectual life. Accordingly, I cannot return to anything less mature than my own beat and be even tolerably contented until I deteriorate intellectually to a real “second childhood.” At the end of this week, a man whom I have never met is coming to see me. I think he has a scheme for enticing me to California with a chance for good earnings straightening out the discontented famous people in Hollywood. If that is his mission, I probably would not be interested. I am not interested enough in working just to stay alive. On the other hand, I would be happy if I could get some money for doing the work necessary for completing and rounding out the work already so far advanced. Looking toward the future, the first thing to do will be to finish and print a complete bibliography. This would require only a little of my time if an expert bibliographer were employed. The next important item is the publishing of Toward Evolutionary Psychology. Now comes the first big decision that must be made. I have a small trunk full of unfinished essays and notes. These elaborate, illustrate, or/and apply my more recent intellectual development. From the viewpoint of the distant future, it is my opinion that it is more useful to finish unfinished manuscripts than to edit and republish the old ones; more important to prepare these papers for publication than to edit or rewrite essays that were 166 already in print. Also, for half a century I have been writing controversial letters. In later years these have been rather carefully prepared. All these should be sifted out from my files for a volume titled The Correspondence of a Controversialist. On March 13, 1952, I gave my last lecture at the Masonic Hall in Greenwich, Connecticut. I face death with calm. Life as an inactive existence is not worth living. When I have exhausted my resources and can do no more work that I believe is useful, I will commit suicide. Nancy often suggested that we commit suicide together but I was not ready because of the belief, or perhaps illusion, that I still had work to do that had social value. Because I deliberately defied some social convention or violated some law, I thought such “misbehavior” harmless to myself and more valuable to society than conformity. Perhaps it can be said of me that I came from nowhere and upon death will go back there. I believe that I will have only a figurative “life after death.” I disbelieve in the resurrection either of my body or my mythical eternal soul. I hope to live, not in the “hearts of man,” nor in the illusional heaven of the clergy, but in the memory of a few students of human nature and intelligent seekers of liberation. I do not long to sit on “the right hand of God,” but on the bookshelves of a few scholars who study the evolution of human thought and liberty. I have no desire to live as Jesus lived and be remembered by objectively meaningless plagiarized laconics. I hope to live in the memory of men because of some improvements that I have made to the ideas of my predecessors and some contemporaries. I desire no hosannas, harps, or hallelujahs associated with my demise, or with my work. I do hope that it will be true of me that some who may have never even heard my name will yet have learned to do more mature thinking and to enjoy greater liberty because of my life and work. If I could now be assured of having a little of such influence during a part of a century, I would think of myself as having lived a very useful life. I am content with having lived my life as best I know and with the object of having promoted the psychological maturing of some, and indirectly being useful to many. I wish to have my social value measured by my standards rather than by those of our varying popular moral superstitions. I have just entered my 88th year. If I can find the time, I will write about the moment, about seventy years ago when I adopted this as my own: “The world is my country, to do good is my religion.” With that phrase, I developed a different mental content and adopted a different terminology than most of my generation. I now see intellectually what formerly I only vaguely felt, namely, a growing interdependence of the whole human race. 167 APPENDIX A A Tentative List of Questions Provided Those Seeking Analysis Intellectual Development 1. What was your highest Grade? At What Age? State difficulties in school, i.e., learning or conduct. Resistance to training and discipline. 2. What was your parental attitude toward your school work? 3. What were your motives for an education? Striving for grades? Desiring to ‘get by?’ 4. What was your reaction to intellectual competition? A feeling of gratitude toward constructive criticism, or hostile, fault-finding, making excuses, etc.? 5. What kind of reading matter did you prefer? Informative, educational, and enlightening, detective stories, love stories, radio entertainment, sports, ‘quiz’ programs, the funnies, etc.? 6. Mother Relationship 1. What was your mother’s age at the time of your birth? 2. What was her interest in social, political, charitable, religious, or other outside affairs? 3. To what extent were her ambitions satisfied? Did she follow her chosen career? If not, what were her frustrated ambitions? 4. Was she always greatly concerned about your welfare? 5. What was her severity in dealing with you? Or were you a favored child? 6. How did you respond to her methods of training? Submissive, a mama’s boy, pouty, indignant, resentful? 7. Was her emotional stability stable? Was she inclined to worry over seemingly trivial matters? Was she fussy, easily annoyed, given to temper tantrums, or easygoing? 8. What was her affection for you? Frequent demonstrations, or rarely, if ever, affectionate? 9. How did you deal with her affection toward you? Did you like it? Think nothing of it? Or was it embarrassing? 10. Was she confidential and intimate with you? Or reserved, and inclined to keep her own counsel? 11. Did you love her and make her a confidant of her? Were you free to discuss any subject or only certain subjects? What if any information did she give you about sexual matters? 12. Do you idealize your mother? Or did you hate her? Is she your ideal, or are you able to seek faults in her the same as in other people? 13. What was your reaction to her death? A sense of relief? Or of self-reproach? 14. If a stepmother, use similar questions. 15. Father Relationship 1. What was your father’s age at your birth? 2. What was your father’s chief ambition? A desire for wealth, social or political prestige? To be outstanding in some particular field or activity? Or lacking in ambition and initiative? Inclined to think only of himself, or of others? 168 3. How far did he realize his chief ambitions? Fully satisfied, or have failed, or still trying? 4. Were you devoted to your father? Self-sacrificing, a papa’s boy, or hostile to parental authority? 5. How much force was used to modify your attitude? Domineering, uncompromising, or willing to let you be the judge of your inclinations? 6. What was your father’s emotional stability? Conflicts and difficulties rationalized? Or impulsive, unreasonable, high-strung, explosive, etc.? 7. How Severe was your father in dealing with you? Stern, kind, threatening, indulgent, instructive? 8. What was your reaction to his methods of dealing with you? Fear of restrictions and punishments? Or no fear of being unfairly scolded or misunderstood? 9. What was your father’s affection toward you in pre-adolescence? Excessive contact, or no physical embracing? 10. What was your father’s interest in your ambitions? Greatly interested, willing to make sacrifices, or unconcerned? Planning to use your services himself, or hoping you would get out? 11. What was the extent of your intimate relationship with him? Confidential about personal problems? No fear of imparting full knowledge of past errors and mistakes? Or unable to admit the facts? 12. Idealizing the father-parent. Was he your ideal? Or could you see faults in him the same as in other people? 13. Your reaction to your separation by death or otherwise? A feeling of dependency, longing to be near him, or the same as other people? 14. If a step-father, how have you managed in terms of the above? 15. Home Life 1. Relationship between father and mother? Did they have frequent misunderstandings and quarrels, or live in harmony and peace? Were they jealous of one another? Any threats? Who was the boss? 2. Your reactions to their conflicts? Nervous and terribly upset, or wholly detached. Which side did you favor? 3. Personal authority. Obedience demanded? Stern and uncompromising, or both parents willing to ‘give in’ by force of reason? 4. Extent to which your early home-life training was filled with frustrations? 5. Your attitude toward their disciplinary measures? Adjustive, appreciative, or inclined to resent parental authority? 6. Amount of parental over-protection? Over religious, or inclined to let you formulate and act out your plans? 7. Were you allowed to bring your friends into the home? 8. Your response to leaving home? Longing to get back to family places, homesick, or adjustive? Religion 1. What if any church did your parents attend? Deeply religious, or indifferent? 2. Do they argue over religious matters? Dogmatic, or tolerant in their views? 169 3. Their attitude toward your religious education? Very much concerned, or indifferent? Did you go to Sunday school or parochial school? How long? 4. Amount of pressure employed? Were you forced to go to church or Sunday school, or was the matter left to yourself? 5. Your present belief about a God? Personal or impersonal conception, that is, do you look upon God as a principle, ideal, philosophy of life, or as an ‘object,’ personality, or kind of big supernatural man? 6. Your feeling of the need for religion? A strong desire for it, a feeling of fear without it, or a mixed fearful need of it? Or not very concerned about it? 7. Your sense of sin and guilt? A feeling of self-reproach, inadequacy, remorse, or inclined to view past error as part of an evolutionary culture? 8. Your attitude toward freedom of religion? Open to opinions on new slants, prejudiced, cocksure, self-opinionated, firmly ‘set’ in your first ideas? 9. Reaction to your conflict with the law? A feeling of hostility toward a person, office, judge, or jury, or no resentment. Self-Worth 1. Your craving for social distinction? Social recognition much sought, or not interested in self-glorification? 2. Amount of blame or injustice suffered? State of origin, nature, and development? 3. Your attitude toward penalties and punishments prescribed as corrective measures? Resentful, defiant, not satisfied, or adjustive, willing to cooperate? 4. Your Ideal or chief ambition? Personal or impersonal? Make lots of money with a view to immediate satisfactions and pleasures, or voluntary self-service to include all human beings rather than some particular individual, family, group, creed, or race? 5. Your emotional stability? Instincts are primary wants under control, or emotionally unstable, immature? That is a tendency to satisfy sensations, feelings, and fantasies without regard to the future. Often in need of rescue from some unpleasant situation? 170 BIBLIOGRAPHY The materials for this book were drawn principally from the Theodore Schroeder Papers located in the Special Collections Division of Morris Library at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. The library’s 118 boxes contain correspondence, published and unpublished manuscripts, newspaper clippings, notes, diaries, bibliographic compilations, books, and reviews. The topics covered in his extensive research and writings involve freedom of speech, the Bishop Brown Heresy case, Island affairs, Mormonism, court testimonies, religion in general, psychoanalysis, evolutionary psychology, human sexuality, his last will, and related subjects. Other materials used for the book include the Ida Craddock Papers and the Open Court Publishing Company Papers which are also available in Morris Library’s Special Collections. Books: Bates, Anna Louise. Weeder in the Garden of the Lord: Anthony Comstock’s life and Career. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995. Beisel, Nicola. Imperiled Innocents: Anthony Comstock and Family Reproduction in Victorian America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997. Broun, Heywood and Margaret Leech. Anthony Comstock: Roundsman of the Lord. New York: Boni, 1927. Brown, William Montgomery. Communism and Christianism: Analyzed and Contrasted from the Marxian and Darwinian Points of View. Galion, Ohio: Bradford-Brown Educational Co., 1920) Brudnoy, David. “The Seven Ages of Theodore Schroeder”. Ph.D. Diss., Brandeis University, 1971. Buss, David M. Evolutionary Psychology: The New Science of the Mind. New York: Routledge, 2019. _____. The Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. 2 vols.; New Jersey: Wiley, 2016. Caughlin, Anne. “A Unique Heathen: The Sexual Dogmatics of Theodore Schroeder”. Ph.D. Dissertation: Fuller Theological Seminary, 1986. Comstock, Anthony. Frauds Exposed; Or, How the People Are Deceived and Robbed, and Youth Corrupted. New York: Brown, 1880. 171 Darrow, Clarence. The Story of My Life. New York: Scribner’s, 1932. Feuerbach, Ludwig Andreas. The Essence of Christianity. London: Trubner, 1881. Fiske, John. Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy. New York: Houghton, Mifflin, and Co., 1885. Flower, Benjamin O. Progressive Men, Women, and Movements of the Past Twenty-Five Years. Boston: New Arena Press, 1914. Foster, Gaines M. Moral Reconstruction: Christian Lobbyists and the Federal Legislation of Morality, 1865-1920. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002. Geher, Glenn, and Nicole Wedberg. Positive Evolutionary Psychology: Darwin’s Guide to Living. New York: Oxford University Press, 2020. Goldberg, Ben Zion. The Sacred Fire: The Story of Sex in Religion. New York: University Books, 1958 [1930]. Gordon, Pierre. Sex and Religion. New York: Social Science Publishers, 1949. Gordon, Sarah Barringer. The Mormon Question: Polygamy and Constitutional Conflict in Nineteenth-Century America. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009. Graber, Mark A. Transforming Free Speech: The Ambiguous Legacy of Civil Libertarianism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1991. Grinder, Robert. A History of Genetic Psychology. New York; John Wiley and Sons, 1967. Hale, N. G., Jr. Freud and the Americans: The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876-1917. New York: Oxford University Press, 1971. Hall, G. Stanley. Adolescence: Its Psychology and Its Relations to Physiology, Anthropology, Sociology, Sex, Crime, Religion, and Education. New York: Appleton, 1904. Healy, William. The Structure and Meaning of Psychoanalysis. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1930. Horowitz, Helen Lefkowitz. Rereading Sex: Battles over Sexual Knowledge and Suppression in Nineteenth-Century America. New York: Knopf, 2002. Ingersoll, Robert G. Trial for Blasphemy. New York: Farrell, 1888. Ishill, Joseph. A New Concept of Liberty. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Criole Press, 1940. Jones, E. Free Associations: Memories of a Psychoanalyst. New York: Basic Books, 1959. Kraft-Ebing, Richard von. Psychopathia Sexualis. Philadelphia: F. A. Davis, 1892. Kuhn, Leslie. Theodore Schroeder’s Last Will. New York: Psychological Library, 1953. _____. Theodore Schroeder: The Sage of Cos Cob: The Definitive Bibliography of His 172 Published Works. New York: Psychological Library Publishers, 1964. Leuba, James Henry. The Psychological Origin and the Nature of Religion. New York: Macmillan Co., 1912. Luhan, Mabel Dodge. Intimate Memories: The Autobiography of Mabel Dodge Luhan. London: Martin Secker, 1933. Marsh, Joss. Word Crimes: Blasphemy, Culture, and Literature in Nineteenth-Century England. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. McCoy, R. (ed.). Theodore Schroeder: A Cold Enthusiast. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University, 1973. McDougall, William. An Introduction to Social Psychology. Boston: John W. Luce and Co., 1913. Noble, D., and D. L. Burnham. History of the Washington Psychoanalytic Society and the Washington Psychoanalytic Institute. Washington, D.C.: Washington Psychoanalytic Society, 1969. Paulos, Michael Harold, and Konden Smith Hansen (eds.). The Reed Smoot Hearings: The Investigation of a Mormon Senator and the Transformation of an American Religion. Logan, Utah: Utah State University Press, 2021, Persons, Stow (ed.). Evolutionary Thought in America. New York: Braziller, 1956. Putnam, Samuel Porter. Four Hundred Years of Freethought. New York: The Truth Seeker Co., 1894. Rabban, David M. Free Speech in its Forgotten Years. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Rank, Otto. Psychology and the Soul. Philadelphia: Univ. of Pennsylvania Press, 1930. Reich, Wilhelm. The Function of the Orgasm. New York: Farrar and Strauss, 1973. Roberts, S. Craig. Applied Evolutionary Psychology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012. Sanger, William W. The History of Prostitution. New York; Harper and Brothers, 1858. Sankey-Jones, Nancy Eleanor. Bibliography of Theodore Schroeder on the Psychology of Religion and the Erotogenetic Interpretation of Mysticism. (Cos Cob, CN: 1934. _____. One Who is Different: To Which is Now Added a Bibliography of Theodore Schroeder on the Psychology of Religion. Cos Cob, CN: Sankey-Jones, 1927. _____. Theodore Schroeder on Free Speech. New York: Free Speech League, 1919. 173 _____. Theodore Schroeder’s Use of the Psychologic Approach to Problems of Religion, Law, Criminology, Sociology, and Philosophy a Bibliography. Cos Cob, CN: 1920. _____. Toward Self-Reliance and Freedom. Printed for Private Distribution, 1912. _____. A Unique Heathen, to Which is Now Added: Theodore Schroeder on the Erotogenesis of Religion, a Bibliography. Cos Cob, CN: 1922. Schroeder, Theodore. About the Intellectual Work of Theodore Schroeder. Cos Cob, CN, n.p., 1944. _____. Al Smith, the Pope, and the Presidency: A Sober Discussion of the Church-State Issue. New York: Author, 1928. _____. Anarchism and ‘The Lord’s Farm’: Record of a Social Experiment. Chicago: n.p., 1919. _____. Are All Radicals Insane? New York: Psyche and Eros, 1921. _____. Authorship of the Book of Mormon: Psychologic Tests of W. F. Prince Critically Reviewed, to which is Now Added a Bibliography of Schroeder on Mormonism. Worcester, MA: American Journal of Psychology, 1919. _____. The Bishop of the Bolsheviks and Atheists: The Rt. Rev. William Montgomery Brown. New York: n.p., 1922. _____. Blasphemy and Free Speech, Being Sample Portions of an Argument which a Connecticut Judge Refused to Read; Printed to Promote the Repeal of Blasphemy Laws. New York: Free Speech League, 1918. _____. The Case of Senator Smoot: An Academic Discussion. NY: A. T. Schroeder, 1905. _____. Censors and Psychopaths. n.p., 1925. _____. Censorship of Sex Literature. n.p., 1909. _____. The Challenge to Sex Censors. New York City: n.p., 1938. _____. Christian Science and Sex: A Contribution to the Erotogenic Interpretation of Religion. n.p., 1920. _____. Concerning the Heresy Trial of Rt. Rev. William Montgomery Brown. NY: n.p., 1924. _____. The Conflict of Impulses: Their Rise, Progress and Examination. n.p., 1933. _____. Conservativisms, Liberalisms and Radicalism and the New Psychology. Cos Cob, CN: The Next Century Press, 1942. _____. Constitutional Free Speech Defined and Defended: In an Unfinished Argument in a Case 174 of Blasphemy. New York: Da Capo Press, 1970. _____. Converting Sex into Religiosity. n.p., 1933. _____. The Criminal Anarchy Law and On Suppressing the Advocacy of Crime. NY: Mother Earth Publishing Assoc., 1907. _____. Criminology and Social Psychology. n.p., 1917. _____. Culture and Culturine. New York: Schroeder, 1904. _____. Determinism, Conduct and Fear Psychology. n.p., 1919. _____. The Differential Essence of Religion. New York: n.p., 1914. _____. Due Process of Law in Relation to Statutory Uncertainty and Constructive Offenses, Giving Much Needed Enlightenment to Legislators, Bar and Bench. New York: Free Speech League, 1908. _____. Emotional Conflict, Liberty and Authority. n.p., 1921. _____. Erotogenesis of Religion: A Bibliography. NY: G. Bruno, 1916. _____. Erotogenesis of Religion: Developing a Working Hypothesis. St. Louis: n.p., 1913. _____. The Erotogenetic Interpretation of Religion: Its Opponents Reviewed. n.p., 1914. _____. Erskine on the Limits of Toleration. NY: Mother Earth Pub. Assoc., 1911. _____. The Etiology and Development of Our Censorship of Sex-Literature. n.p., 1910. _____. The Evolution of Marriage Ideals. New York: Edwin C. Walker, 1905. _____. An Evolutionary Psychologist; Theodore Schroeder’s Thumbnail Essays. Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Oriole Press, 1965. _____. Evolutionary Psychology: Hints as to Its Factors, Importance, Uses, and Resulting Changes for Our Whole Social Order: Also, Some Information by and About Theodore Schroeder. Stamford, CN: Next Century Fund, 1949. _____. Family Worship. St. Louis: Concordia Pub. House, 1981. _____. The Fight for Free Speech: A Supplement to ‘Law-Breaking by the Police’: Including a Legal Opinion by Theodore Schroeder. East Orange, NJ: East Orange Record Print, 1909. _____. Four Sample Essays on the Intellectual Life. n.p., 1945. _____. Free Press Anthology. NY: Free Speech League, 1909. _____. Free Speech Bibliography Including Every Discovered Attitude Toward the Problem Covering Every Method of Transmitting Ideas and Abridging their Promulgation Upon 175 Every Subject-Matter. New York: Grafton and Co., 1922. _____. Free Speech for Radicals. New York; Free Speech League, 1916. _____. Free Speech for Radicals: Seven Essays. New York: Free Speech League, 1912. _____. Free Press Anthology. Littleton, CO: F. B. Rothman, 1985. _____. Freedom of the Press and Obscene Literature: Three Essays. New York City: The League, 1906. _____. The Free Lance Society and the Churches: A Few Remarks Made at the Lagoon, Friday, August 13, 1897. Salt Lake City: n.p., 1897. _____. The Gospel Concerning Church and State. Salt Lake City, Utah: n.p. 1897. _____. Government by Spies. n.p., 1910. _____. Heavenly Bridegrooms; An Unintentional Contribution to the Erotogenetic Interpretation of Religion. New York: n.p., 1918. _____. The Herd Impulse. Democratization and Evolutionary Psychology. Cos Cob, CN: n.p., 1921. _____. The Historical Interpretation of Unabridged Freedom of Speech. NY: Free Speech League, 1910. _____. Hours with a Revivalist: A Report from the Psychologic Viewpoint. New York: Truth Seeker Co., 1917. _____. The Impurity of Divorce Suppression. Boston: Albert Brandt, 1905. _____. The Individual Initiative of an Evolutionary Psychologist Described. Cos Cob, CN: Next Century Press, 1941. _____. Intellectual Liberty and Literary Style. n.p., 1920. _____. Law of Blasphemy; The Modern View Exhibited in Model Instructions to a Jury. New York: Free Speech League, 1919. _____. Liberal Opponents and Conservative Friends of Unabridged Free Speech. n.p., 1910. _____. Liberty Through Impersonal Service. Riverside, CN: Hillacre, 1915. _____. List of References on Birth Control. New York: H.W. Wilson Co., 1918. _____, Lucifer’s Lantern. Nos. 1-9. June, August, Nov., 1898; Feb., June, Sept, 1899; May, 1900. _____. Manufacturing ‘the Experience of God’: An Exhibition of Some Psychologic Processes 176 by which Mystical Experience Evolves to Theologic Dogma. NY: n.p., 1927. _____. Martyrs or Criminals: An Unmoral Analysis of a Celebrated Case. n.p., 1915. _____. May it Please the Court. Mays Landing, NJ: Sunshine Book Co., 1945. _____. The Meaning of Free Speech. New York: Free Speech League, 1917. _____. Mental Hygiene for Non-Combatants. New York: Medical Review of Reviews, 1918. _____. Methods of Constitutional Construction: The Synthetic Method Illustrated on the Free Speech Clause of the Federal Constitution. New York City: Free Speech League, 1910. _____. Mormonism Considered, Being a Lecture Delivered at Unity Hall, Salt Lake City, Utah, March 1897: Entitled ‘Thoughts Suggested by a Study of Mormonism” to which are Added Numerous References and a Few Remarks on ‘The Rewards of a Liberal Faith.’ Salt Lake City, Utah: n.p., 1897. _____. A Much Needed Defense for Liberty of Conscience, Speech and Press: With Special Application to Sex Discussion. New York: Free Speech League, 1906. _____. Nationalism, Religious and Radical Hatreds. New York: Schroeder, 1937. _____. A New Concept of Liberty from an Evolutionary Psychologist: Theodore Schroeder; Selections from his Writings. Berkeley Heights, New Jersey: Oriole Press, 1940. _____. A New Philosophy of Life. Cos Cob, CT: Schroeder, 1936. _____. No Reference Library Can Afford to be Without Real Free Speech Books by Theodore Schroeder. Cos Cob, CN: Schroeder, 1922. _____. ‘Obscene’ Literature and Constitutional Law; A Forensic Defense of Freedom of the Press. New York: Da Capo Press, 1972. _____. On Liberty of the Press for Advocating Resistance to Government: Being Part of an Essay Written for the Encyclopedia Britannica, sixth Edition, 1821. New York: Free Speech League, 1913. _____. One Religio-Sexual Maniac. New Jersey: n.p., 1936. _____. The Origin of the Book of Mormon: Re-Examined in its Relation to Spaulding’s ‘Manuscript Found.’ Salt Lake City, Utah: n.p., 1901. _____. Our Vanishing Liberty of the Press. NY: Free Speech League, 1905. _____. Partial Bibliography of the Writings of Theodore Schroeder, Dealing Largely with Problems of Religion, of Sex, and of Freedom of Speech. New York: Free Speech League, 177 1913. _____. Paternal Legislation: A Study of Liberty. NY: Schroeder, 1906. _____. Phallic Worship to a Secularized Sex. n.p., 1923. _____. The Philosopher’s Wail of Slackery. n.p., 1918. _____. Polygamy in Congress. Boston: The Arena, 1900. _____. Polygamy and the Constitution. Trenton: n.p., 1906. _____. Presumptions and Burden of Proof as to Malice in Criminal Libel. New York: Free Speech League, 1915. _____. Protest of the Free Speech League Against the Passage of Senate Bill No. 1790, Assembly bill No. 650, New York Legislature, 1911: Which Proposes to Penalize Certain Medical Advertising and Intelligence. New York: The League, 1911. _____. Psychic Aspects of Social Evolution. Chicago: n.p., 1917. _____. Psychic Lasciviousness and ‘Purity’ Legislation. n.p., 1906. _____. Psychoanalysis and Suggestion: A Contribution Toward a Definition of the Psychoanalytic Approach. NY: n.p., 1923. _____. The Psycho-Analytic Method of Observation. London: Institute of Psycho-Analysis, 1925. _____. Psychogenetics of Androcratic Evolution. Lancaster, PA: New Era Print Co., 1915. _____. Psycho-Genetics of One Criminal. n.p., 1924. _____. Psychologic Aspect of Birth-Control Considered in Relation to Mental Hygiene. NY: n.p., 1922. _____. The Psychologic Aspect of Free Association. Worcester, MA: n.p., 1919. _____. A Psychologic Study of Judicial Opinion. New York: n.p., 1917. _____. A Psychological Study of Judicial Opinion. NY: Privately Reprinted, 1917. _____. The Psychological Study of Modesty. n.p., 1909. _____. The Psychologist on Wage Arbitration. n.p., 1945. _____. Psychology, Democracy and Free Speech. n.p., n.d. _____. Psychology of One Pantheist. n.p., 1921. _____. A Question of Mormon Patriotism. New York: Pub. Society of New York, 1906. _____. The Religious and Secular Distinguished. New York: n.p., 1908. 178 _____. Religious ‘Love in Action.’ n.p., 1925. _____. A Reply to a Defense of Mormons and an Attack Upon the Ministerial Association of Utah. New York: n.p., 1905. _____. Reviews and Contents of ‘Obscene’ Literature and Constitutional Law: A Forensic Defense of Freedom of the Press. NY: author, 1911. _____. The Riddles in Bishop Brown’s Heresy Case. Chicago; Open Court Pub. Co., 1925. _____. A Scientific Approach to Religious Psychology. n.p., 1922. _____. The Scientific Aspect of Due Process of Law and Constructive Crimes. New York: Free Speech League, 1908. _____. Secularism and the Churches. New York: American Freethought Tract Society, 1912. _____. Secularism and Religiosity. n.p., 1945. _____. Sex and Censorship: The Eternal Conflict. n.p., 1927. _____. The Sex-Determinant in Mormon Theology: A Study in the Erotegenesis of Religion. n.p., n.d. _____. Shaker Celibacy and Salacity, Psychologically Interpreted: A Contribution to the Erotogenetic Interpretation of Religion. New York: A. R. Elliot Publishing Co., 1921. _____. Some Difficulties and Problems of the Psychologists of Religion. New York: n.p., 1922. _____. Some Facts Concerning Polygamy. Salt Lake City, Utah: n.p., 1898. _____. Table of Cases Involving Obscenity and Kindred Statutes. New York: Free Speech League, 1911. _____. Tabooed Aspects of Suffrage Discussion. n.p., 1913. _____. Thomas Paine. West Haven, CN: Promoting Enduring Peace, 1945. _____. Thomas Paine: A Dynamic Digest of the Life and Work of this Great Humanitarian and Patriot of the American and French Revolutions. Portland, OR: Institute of Human Fellowship, 1945. _____. Thomas Paine: Inspirer of American Independence, Apostle of Liberty, Prophet of Democracy, Champion of Human Rights, Torchbearer of Reason. West Haven, CN: Promoting Enduring Peace, 1945. _____. Thoughts on the Mormon Problem and Its Solution. Salt Lake City: n.p., 1900. _____. Thumbnail Essays: On the Psychology of War and Peace. Cos Cob, CN: Author, 1944. 179 _____. Thumbnail Essays: Samples of Unusual Thinking by an Evolutionary Psychologist. Cos Cob, CN: Schroeder, 1949. ____. What is Criminally ‘Obscene’? A Scientific Study of the Absurd Judicial ‘Tests’ of Obscenity. New York: Free Speech League, 1906. _____. Unconstitutionality of All Laws Against ‘Obscene’ Literature. NY: Free Speech League, 1908. _____. A Unique Heathen: to Which is Now Added Theodore Schroeder on the Erotogenesis of Religion: A Bibliography. New York: Free Speech League, 1906. _____. What About You? NY: Psychological Library, 1951. _____. What is Criminally ‘Obscene’?: A Scientific Study of the Absurd Judicial ‘Tests’ of Obscenity. NY: Free Speech League, 1906. _____. What is Purity?: A Study of Sex Overvaluation. Olalla, Wash.: Evergreens, 1907. _____. Where Speech is Not Free—In the U.S.A.; An Appeal to the Record. Mays Landing, New Jersey: Open Road Press, 1944. _____. Why: ‘Obscene’ Literature and Constitutional Law: A Forensic Defense of Freedom of the Press. NY: n.p., 1911. _____. The Wildisbusch Crucified Saint: A Study in the Erotogenesis of Religion. n.p., 1914. _____. Witchcraft and Obscenity, Twin Superstitions. NY: Free Press League, 1912. Sherman, M. H. (ed.). Psychoanalysis in America: Historical Perspectives. Springfield, IL: Charles C. Thomas, 1966. Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Heaven’s Bride: The Unprintable Life of Ida C. Craddock, American Mystic, Scholar, Sexologist, Martyr, and Madwoman. New York: Basic Books, 2020. Special Committee to Investigate the Eligibility of Brigham H. Roberts, of Utah, to a Seat in the House of Representatives. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1890. Starbuck, Edwin Diller. The Psychology of Religion. New York; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1912. Tayler, Robert Walker. The Case of Brigham H. Roberts; Can a Polygamist Be Excluded from the House of Representatives? Speeches in the House of Representatives, December 4 and 5, 1899, and January 23 and 25, 1900 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1900). 180 Weinberg, Arthur (ed.). Attorney for the Damned: Clarence Darrow in the Courtroom. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. Weir, James. Religion and Lust. Chicago: Chicago Medical Book Co., 1905. White, William Alanson. The Autobiography of a Purpose. Garden City, NY: Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1938. _____. Forty Years of Psychiatry. New York: Nervous and Mental Disease Pub. Co., 1933. _____. Insanity and Criminal Law. New York: Macmillan Co., 1923. _____. Outlines of Psychiatry. Washington, D.C.: Nervous and Mental Disease Pub. Co., 1907. _____. Twentieth Century Psychiatry. New York: W. W. Norton and Co., 1936. White, William Alanson. The Washington Years, 1903-1937. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1976. Zilboorg, Gregory. Freud and Religion. Maryland: Newman Press, 1958. _____. Psychoanalysis and Religion. London: George Allen and Unwin, 1962. Articles: Brink, T. L., “Joseph Smith: The Verdict of Depth Psychology,” Journal of Mormon History, 3 (1976) 73-83. Brudnoy, David. “A Decade in Zion: Theodore Schroeder’s Initial Assault on the Mormons,” The Historian, 37 (1975), 241-56. _____. “Of Sinners and Saints: Theodore Schroeder, Brigham Roberts, and Reed Smoot,” Journal of Church and State, 14 (1972), 261-78. Buller, David J. “Four Fallacies of Pop Evolutionary Psychology,” Scientific American, 300 (2009), 74-81. Buss, David M. “Evolutionary Psychology: A New Paradigm for Psychological Science,” Psychological Inquiry, 6 (1995), 1-30. Cuesta, José Enamorado. “Porto Rico’s Real Problem,” Birth Control Review (1932), 157. Hales, Steven D. “Moral Relativism and Evolutionary Psychology,” Synthese, 166 (2009), 431- 47. Hansen, Ralph W. “Among the Mormons: A Survey of Current Literature,” Dialogue: A Journal 181 of Mormon Thought, 8 (1973), 95-101. Heath, Harvard S. “The Reed Smoot Hearings: A Quest for Legitimacy,” Journal of Mormon History, 33 (2007), 1-80. Kenrick, Douglas T. Evolutionary Psychology: Resistance is Futile,” Psychological Inquiry, 17 (2006), 102-109. Menninger, K. A. “Freud and American Psychiatry,” Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association, 4 (1956), 614-25. Rabban, David M. “The Emergence of Modern First Amendment Doctrine, The University of Chicago Law Review, 50 (1983), 1205-1355. _____. “The Free Speech League, the ACLU, and Changing Conceptions of Free Speech in America History,” Stanford Law Review, 45 (1992), 47-114. Roe, Gilbert E., Robert M. LaFollette and Theodore Schroeder, “Social Justice and the Courts,” The Yale Law Journal, 22 (1912), 19-29. Scheidel, Walter. “Evolutionary Psychology and the Historian,” American Historical Review, 119 (2014), 1563-75. Schroeder, Theodore. “Absurdity of the Obscenity Laws,” Physical Culture, 17 (1907), 85-88. _____. “Adolescence and Religion,” Journal of Religious Psychology, 6 (1913), 124-48. _____. “An Odd field of Inquiry,” Truth Seeker, 31 (1904), 70-71. _____. “An Opinion on Blasphemy,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 794. _____. “Anarchism and the Lord’s Farm. Record of a Social Experiment,” Open Court, 32 (1919), 589-607. _____. “Appeal of Polygamists Answered by Utahns,” Kinsman, 2 (1899), 44-47. _____. “Appeal to Truthseekers,” Truth Seeker, 38 (1911), 151. _____. “Argument on Blasphemy,” Truth Seeker, 43 (1916), 822-24. _____. “At the Sunrise Club,” Truth Seeker, 43 (1916), 388-89. _____. “Ballad of Joseph,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 163. _____. “Birth Control and the German War,” American Medicine, 45 (1918) _____. “Bit of Original Evidence,” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No. 9), 1900, 181-83. _____. “Blasphemy Analyzed,” Truth Seeker, 24 (1918), 789-97. _____. “Blasphemy as It is in Law,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 550-51; 650-51; 666-67. _____. “Blasphemy as it Was,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 194-95. _____. “Bundling and Spirituality,” Freethinker, 40 (1920), 566-67. _____. “Censorship of Sex Literature,” Medical Council, 14 (1909), 91-98. _____. “Christian Science and Sex,” New York Medical Journal, 112 (1920), 851-52. 182 _____. “Comstock as a Psychologist,” Truth Seeker, 34 (1907), 179. _____. “Concerning Obscene Literature,” Secular Thought, 33 (1907), 325-26. _____. “Concerning the Meaning of Freedom of Speech and of the Press,” Central Law Journal, 68 (1909), 227-34. _____. “Concerning Uncertainty and ‘Due Process of Law,’” Central Law Review, 66 (1908), 2- 8. _____. “Conscience,” Mother Earth, 2 (1907), 227-28. _____. “Conservatisms, Liberalisms and Radicalisms,” Psychoanalytic Review, 7 (1920), 376- 84. _____. “Constitution and Obscenity Postal Laws,” Albany Law Journal, 69 (1907), 334-39. _____. “Constructive Crimes Defined,” Central law Journal, 67 (1908), 469-75. _____. “Constructive ‘Obscenity’ an Unconstitutional Crime,” Physical Culture, 17 (1907), 363- 64. _____. “Declaration of Independence in the Philippines,” The Public, 14 (1911), 656. _____. “Democracy Yet to Be,” Truth Seeker, 44 (1917), 785-86. _____. “Determinism, Conduct and Fear-Psychology,” Psychoanalytic Review, 6 (1919), 379-90. _____. “Developing a Working Hypothesis on the Erotogenesis of Religion,” Alienist and Neurologist, 34 (1913), 444-76. _____. “Differential Essence of Religion,” Truth Seeker, 41 (1914), 689-91; 706-707; 726-27. _____. “Erotogenesis of Religion,” Alienist and Neurologist, 28 (1907), 330-41. _____. “Erotogenetic Interpretation of Religion,” Journal of Religious Psychology, 7 (1914), 23- 44. _____. “Erskine on the Limits of Toleration,” Secular Thought, 37 (1911), 51-55. _____. “Ethics of Science. Religion Has Failed to Provide an Acceptable Authority in the Matter of Morals,” Truth Seeker, 35 (1908), 689-90; 707; 727. _____. “Evolution of Comstockery,” Altruria, 2 (1907), 13-17. _____. “Free Speech and Flag Idolatry,” New Review, 4 (1916), 155-57. _____. “Free Speech and the War,” New Review, 3 (1915), 158-61. _____. “Free Speech League Too,” Social Builder, 1 (1918), 2. _____. “Freethinkers and Radicals,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 184. 183 _____. “Godly Grogshops,” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No. 2), 1898, 29-30. _____. “Gospel Concerning Education,” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No. 3) 1898, 44-56. _____, “Government by Spies,” Twentieth Century Magazine, 3 (1910), 140-44. _____. “Growing Despotism of Our Judiciary,” Arena, 40 (1908), 75-77. _____. “Growth of Judicial Despotism,” Twentieth Century Magazine, 2 (1910), 319-24. _____. “Historical Interpretation of ‘Law,’” Albany Law Journal, 70 (1908), 101-108. _____. “I Want Your Advice,” American Journal of Eugenics, 1 (1907), 101-102. _____. “Imphood and the Churches,” Lucifer’s Lantern (No 2), 1898, 33-41. _____. “Incest in Mormonism,” American Journal of Urology and Sexology, 11 (1915), 409-16. _____. “In Defense of Liberty. Macfadden’s Arrest,” Physical Culture, 17 (1907), 301-302. _____. “Intellectual Hospitality,” Truth Seeker, 38 (1911), 282. _____. “Intellectual Hospitality and the Free Speech League,” Twentieth Century Magazine, 4 (1911), 264. _____. “Joseph Smith; His Revelation,” Truth Seeker, 31 (1904), 802-3; 818-19; 834-35. _____. “Judge Humphrey’s Apologist,” Truth Seeker, 40 (1913), 663. _____. “Judicial Destruction of Freedom of the Press,” Albany Law Journal, 70 (1908), 323-26. _____. “Judicial Idol Upset: A Denial of the Authority of Judge Blackstone to Interpret Our Constitutions,” Truth Seeker, 44 (1917), 22-23. _____. “Judicial Tests of Obscenity Applied,” Alienist and Neurologist, 31 (1910), 497-501. _____. “Lawless Suppression of Free Speech in New York,” Arena, 39 (1908) 694-99. _____. “Legal Limitations Upon the Use of Language,” The Public, 11 (1908), 147-49. _____. “Legal Obscenity and Sexual Psychology,” Alienist and Neurologist, 29 (1908), 1-35. _____. “Liberal Opponents and Conservative Friends of Free Speech,” Mother Earth, 5 (1910), 96-111. _____. “Libertarian’s Ambition,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 291. _____. “Liberty of the Press Essential to Purity Propaganda,” The Light, 10 (1907), 64-80. _____. “Lobby for Liberty,” The Paladin, 1 (1918), 2. _____. “Matricide and Maryolatry,” Medico-Legal Journal, 36 (1919), 4-10. _____. “Matthias the Prophet,” Journal of Religious Psychology, 6 (1913), 59-65. _____. “Meaning of Free Thought,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 152. 184 _____. “Measure of Our Sincerity,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 232. _____. “Mental Hygiene for Non-Combatants,” Medical Review of Reviews, 14 (1918), 23-29. _____. “Mexican Battalion Again,” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No. 2) 1898, 31-32. _____. “Miscellaneous Abstracts,” Psychoanalytic Review, 3 (1916), 223-30. _____. “Mockus Case,” Truth Seeker, 44 (1917), 787. _____. “Mockus Case Again,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 167. _____. “Mockus Once More,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 651. _____. “Moral Sentimentalizing,” Pacific Medical Journal, 50 (1907), 704-710. _____. “Mormon Advice to Methodist Ministers,” Lucifer’s Lantern, No. 1), 1898, 19-21. _____. “Mormon ‘Apostles’ as Counterfeiters,” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No. 9), 1900, 190-96). _____. “Mormon Blood Atonement,” Truth Seeker, 32 (1905), 226-27. _____. “Mormonism and Intoxicants,” American Historical Magazine, 3 (1908), 237-49. _____. “Mormonism and Prostitution” Medical Council, 14 (1909), 171-78. _____. “Mormon’s Heaven,” Truth Seeker, 43 (1916), 75-121. _____. “Obscene Literature and the Common Law,” Albany Law Journal, 69 (1907), 146-49. _____. “’Obscenity’ and Witchcraft: Twin Superstitions,” Physical Culture, 17 (1907), 431-32. _____. “On the Scene of the Blasphemy Trial,” Truth Seeker, 43 (1916), 808. _____. “On the Implied Power to Exclude ‘Obscene’ Ideas from the Mails,” Central Law Journal, 65 (1907), 177-83. _____. “On the Liberty of Conscience, Speech and Press,” Liberal Review, 3 (1906), 333-41; 418-30. _____. “On Suppressing the Advocacy of Crime,” Mother Earth, 1 (1907), 7-18. _____. “Opposition to Freedom of the Press,” American Journal of Eugenics, 1 (1907), 1-6. _____. “Origins of the Book of Mormon,” American Historical Magazine, 1 (1906), 380-96; 518-33; 2 (1907), 57-76; 213-30. _____. “Our Censorship of Literature,” Tomorrow, 4 (1908), 42-44. _____. “Our Progressive Despotism,” Mother Earth, 3 (1908), 80-84. _____. “Our Vanishing Liberty of the Press,” Arena, 36 (1906), 617-21. _____. “Outline Method for a Study of the Erotogenesis of Religion,” American Journal of Religious Psychology, I5 (1912), 394-401. 185 _____. “Phases of Mormonism, Vicarious Vice, Vicarious Atonement, and Especially Proxy Husbands for Certain Wives,” Truth Seeker, 43 (1916), 215-16. _____. “Polygamy and Inspired Lies,” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No. 1), 1898, 2-18. _____. “Polygamy and the Constitution,” Arena, 36 (1906), 492-97. _____. “Polygamy in Congress; The Mormon Breach of Faith,’ Arena, 23 (1900), 113-20. _____. “Preachers and Priesthood,” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No. 4) 1899, 71-72. _____. “Prosecuted for ‘Obscenity,’” Truth Seeker, 38 (1911), 226. _____. “Proxies in Mormon Polygamy,” Psychoanalytic Review, 3 (1916), 223-30. _____. “Psychic Lasciviousness and Purity Legislation,” Critic and Guide, 7 (1907), 109-11. _____. “Psychogenetics of Androcratic Evolution,” Psychoanalytic Review, 2 (1915), 277-85. _____. “Psychologic Aspects of Free-Association,” American Journal of Psychology, 30 (1919), 260-73. _____. “Psychologic Study of Judicial Opinion,” California Law Review, 6 (1918), 89-113. _____. “Psychologic Study of Modesty,” Medical Council, 14 (1909), 18-22. _____. “Psychology, Democracy and Free Speech,” Medico-Legal Journal, 34 (1917), 1-6. _____. “Psychology of One Pantheist,” Psychoanalytic Review, 8 (1921), 314-28. _____. “Religion and Sensualism as Connected by Clergymen,” American Journal of Religious Psychology, 3 (1908), 16-28. _____. “Religion Not a True Sublimation,” Open Court, 36 (1921), 495-506. _____. “Review of the Defense of Roberts and Polygamy,” Kinsman, 2 (1899), 33-44. _____. “Revival of Seditious Libel; by a Legal Expert,” Free Press, 2 (1910), 2. _____. “Revivals and Virtue,” Truth Seeker, 35 (1908), 401-402. _____. “Revivals, Sex, and Holy Ghost,” Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 14 (1919), 34-47. _____. “Right of Free Speech,” Truth Seeker, 36 (1909), 34-35. _____. “Rights of Moses Harman Under the Constitution: How They Were Denied,” American Journal of Eugenics, 3 (1910), 13-15. _____. “Roberts’ Gentile Support,” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No 7) 1898, 123-26. _____. “Scope of the Blasphemy Laws,” Truth Seeker, 43 (1916), 838-39. _____. “Secularized Mystics,” Open Court, 35 (1921), 163-71. _____. “Sex-determinant in Mormon Theology,” Alienist and Neurologist, 29 (1908), 208-22. 186 _____. “Shaker Celibacy and Salacity—Psychologically Interpreted,” New York Medical Journal, 113 (1921), 800-805. _____. “Some Old Blasphemy Cases,” Truth Seeker, 44 (1917), 547. _____. “Thomas Jefferson and the Alien and Sedition Law,” Free Press, 2 (1910), 1. _____. “Thoughts on the Mormon Problem,” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No. 8) 1900, 155-79. _____. “Toleration is a Crime and ‘tis blasphemy to Advocate it, According to the Blue Laws and Puritan Idea,” Truth seeker, 44 (1917), 1-2. _____. “Twin of Witchcraft. Such is Blasphemy,” Truth Seeker, 43 (1916), 801-803. _____. “Unanswered Letter to Gen. Theodore A. Bingham, Police Commissioner of New York City,” Mother Earth, 2 (1907), 181-83. _____. “Varieties in Criteria of Guilt in Obscenity Cases,” Central Law Journal, 71 (1910), 150 56. _____. “Varieties of Official Modesty,” American Journal of Eugenics, 1 (1907), 229-308. _____. “Vice Society Under Fire,” Truth Seeker, 43 (1916), 277. _____. “Was Joseph Smith ‘the Prophet,’ an Abortionist?” Lucifer’s Lantern, (No. 9) 1900, 184- 89. _____. “What is Criminally ‘Obscene,’” Congres International de Medecine, 16 (1906), 116-31. _____. “When Speech is Free,” Paladin, 1 (1918), 2. _____. “Why Do Purists Object to Sex-Discussion?” American Journal of Eugenics, 1 (1907), 118-23. _____. “Wildisbuch Crucified Saint,” Psychoanalytic Review, 1 (1914), 128-48. _____. “Word with Truthseekers,” Truth Seeker, 45 (1918), 121. Sullivan, H. S. “In Memoriam: William Alanson White, 1870-1937,” American Journal of Psychiatry, 93 (1937), 1480-82. White, W. A. “The Criminal, his Social and Legal Status, and the Philosophy of Reformation,” Transactions of the New York Medical Association, 12 (1895), 50-67. _____. “Expert Testimony and the Alienist,” New York Medical Journal, 88 (1908), 150-54. Newspapers: 187 Deseret News Madison Democrat New York Times Salt Lake Herald Salt Lake Tribune Standard Internet Sources: Helm, Merry. “Before the ACLU, Theodore Schroeder,” in https://news.prairiepublic.org/show/dakota-datebook-archive/2022-05-01/before-the- aclu-theodore-schroeder (Accessed February 1, 2023). Vile, John R. “Theodore Schroeder,” in https://www.mtsu.edu/first- amendment/article/1274/theodore-schroeder (Accessed February 2, 2023) “Online Book Page,” in http://onlinebooks.library.upenn.edu/webbin/book/lookupname?key=Schroeder%2C%20 Theodore%2C%201864%2D1953 (accessed February 2, 2023) “The Church in the Early Twentieth Century,” in https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/manual/church-history-in-the-fulness-of- times/chapter-thirty-six?lang=eng (accessed. February 14, 2023) |
|---|