An American Idyll - The Life of Carleton H. Parker by Cornelia Stratton Parker
page 100 of 164 (60%)
page 100 of 164 (60%)
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instruments of repression, such as religious orthodoxy, university
mental discipline, economic inferiority, imprisonment, physical disfigurement,--such as short stature, hare-lip, etc.,--repress the full psychological expression in the field of these tendencies, then a psychic revolt, slipping into abnormal mental functioning, takes place, and society accuses the revolutionist of being either willfully inefficient, alcoholic, a syndicalist, supersensitive, an agnostic, or insane." I hesitate somewhat to give his programme as set forth in this paper. I have already mentioned that it was written in the spring of 1917, and hurriedly. In referring to this very paper in a letter from New York, he said, "Of course it is written in part _to call out_ comments, and so the statements are strong and unmodified." Let that fact, then, be borne in mind, and also the fact that he may have altered his views somewhat in the light of his further studies and readings--although again, such studies may only have strengthened the following ideas. I cannot now trust to my memory for what discussions we may have had on the subject. "Reform means a militant minority, or, to follow Trotter, a small Herd. This little Herd would give council, relief, and recuperation to its members. The members of the Herd will be under merciless fire from the convention-ridden members of general society. They will be branded outlaws, radicals, agnostics, impossible, crazy. They will be lucky to be out of jail most of the time. They will work by trial and study, gaining wisdom by their errors, as Sidney Webb and the Fabians did. In the end, after a long time, parts of the social sham will collapse, as it did in England, and small promises will become milestones of progress. |
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