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Title: Mother Earth Author: Emma Goldman, Max Baginski Date: 1906 Language: en Topics: Mother Earth Source: Retrieved on March 19, 2012 from http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Mother_Earth_(article)][en.wikisource.org]]. Proofread online source [[http://www.revoltlib.com/?id=3293, retrieved on July 4, 2020. Notes: Originally published in [Mother Earth, Vol. I, no. 1, March 1906.
There was a time when men imagined the Earth as the center of the
universe. The stars, large and small, they believed were created merely
for their delectation. It was their vain conception that a supreme
being, weary of solitude, had manufactured a giant toy and put them into
possession of it.
When, however, the human mind was illumined by the torch-light of
science, it came to understand that the Earth was but one of a myriad of
stars floating in infinite space, a mere speck of dust.
Man issued from the womb of Mother Earth, but he knew it not, nor
recognized her, to whom he owed his life. In his egotism he sought an
explanation of himself in the infinite, and out of his efforts there
arose the dreary doctrine that he was not related to the Earth, that she
was but a temporary resting place for his scornful feet and that she
held nothing for him but temptation to degrade himself. Interpreters and
prophets of the infinite sprang into being, creating the “Great Beyond”
and proclaiming Heaven and Hell, between which stood the poor, trembling
human being, tormented by that priest-born monster, Conscience.
In this frightful scheme, gods and devils waged eternal war against each
other with wretched man as the prize of victory; and the priest,
self-constituted interpreter of the will of the gods, stood in front of
the only refuge from harm and demanded as the price of entrance that
ignorance, that asceticism, that self-abnegation which could but end in
the complete subjugation of man to superstition. He was taught that
Heaven, the refuge, was the very antithesis of Earth, which was the
source of sin. To gain for himself a seat in Heaven, man devastated the
Earth. Yet she renewed herself, the good mother, and came again each
Spring, radiant with youthful beauty, beckoning her children to come to
her bosom and partake of her bounty. But ever the air grew thick with
mephitic darkness, ever a hollow voice was heard calling: “Touch not the
beautiful form of the sorceress; she leads to sin!”
But if the priests decried the Earth, there were others who found in it
a source of power and who took possession of it. Then it happened that
the autocrats at the gates of Heaven joined forces with the powers that
had taken possession of the Earth; and humanity began its aimless,
monotonous march. But the good mother sees the bleeding feet of her
children, she hears their moans, and she is ever calling to them that
she is theirs.
To the contemporaries of George Washington, Thomas Paine and Thomas
Jefferson, America appeared vast, boundless, full of promise. Mother
Earth, with the sources of vast wealth hidden within the folds of her
ample bosom, extended her inviting and hospitable arms to all those who
came to her from arbitrary and despotic lands — Mother Earth ready to
give herself alike to all her children. But soon she was seized by the
few, stripped of her freedom, fenced in, a prey to those who were
endowed with cunning and unscrupulous shrewdness. They, who had fought
for independence from the British yoke, soon became dependent among
themselves; dependent on possessions, on wealth, on power. Liberty
escaped into the wilderness, and the old battle between the patrician
and the plebeian broke out in the new world, with greater bitterness and
vehemence. A period of but a hundred years had sufficed to turn a great
republic, once gloriously established, into an arbitrary state which
subdued a vast number of its people into material and intellectual
slavery, while enabling the privileged few to monopolize every material
and mental resource.
During the last few years, American journalists have had much to say
about the terrible conditions in Russia and the supremacy of the Russian
censor. Have they forgotten the censor here? a censor far more powerful
than him of Russia. Have they forgotten that every line they write is
dictated by the political color of the paper they write for; by the
advertising firms; by the money power; by the power of respectability;
by Comstock? Have they forgotten that the literary taste and critical
judgment of the mass of the people have been successfully moulded to
suit the will of these dictators, and to serve as a good business basis
for shrewd literary speculators? The number of Rip Van Winkles in life,
science, morality, art, and literature is very large. Innumerable
ghosts, such as Ibsen saw when he analyzed the moral and social
conditions of our life, still keep the majority of the human race in
awe.
MOTHER EARTH will endeavor to attract and appeal to all those who oppose
encroachment on public and individual life. It will appeal to those who
strive for something higher, weary of the commonplace; to those who feel
that stagnation is a deadweight on the firm and elastic step of
progress; to those who breathe freely only in limitless space; to those
who long for the tender shade of a new dawn for a humanity free from the
dread of want, the dread of starvation in the face of mountains of
riches. The Earth free for the free individual!
Emma Goldman,
Max Baginski.
The name “Open Road” had to be abandoned, owing to the existence of a
magazine by that name.