Mother Earth, Vol. 1 No. 3, May 1906. Various
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with in such a fashion?"
"You want Russia to be free from the rule of the Tsar, don't you?" I asked.
"Certainly, he is a tyrant and an irresponsible weakling, unfit to govern a great people. Of course, we want Russia to be free. The people of Russia are entitled to be free, to govern themselves."
"Do you think they ought to be allowed to make their own laws?" I asked.
"Of course."
"Then, why do you say that Gorky is not properly divorced from his first wife and married to his second? The people of Russia approve."
"Margaret Grant!" cried Sarah, outraged and voicing the horror of the other members, "I sometimes wonder if you have any respect at all for the law. How can you speak as you do? If men and women could dispense with the law in that way what would become of society?"
"But this state used to permit men and women to live together without any ceremony and so become man and wife," I said.
"Well, we don't permit it now," retorted Sarah, grimly.
"If they want to live together now," cried the voice from the corner, "they must pretend they don't, even if everybody knows they do."
Some of the members laughed at that, but Mrs. Blanderocks thought that was going too far and said so in her coldest manner.
"I see nothing funny in that. We cannot change the natures of men, but we can insist upon their hiding their baser conduct and the degraded portions of their lives from our view."
"But," said I, "Gorky evidently considers this woman his wife, and had no idea that anybody would think otherwise."
"The point is," said Sarah Warner, in exasperation, "and I think I voice the sentiments of this organization, that he was not legally divorced from his first wife and that, therefore, he cannot be legally married to this woman. A law is a law, no matter who makes it. The law is sacred and must not be tampered with."
"How about the Supreme Court on divorces in Dakota?" demanded the voice from the corner.
A dead silence fell on the meeting. Some of the members looked at each other and showed signs of hysterics. Mrs. Blanderocks flashed a withering glance at the corner, but rose to the occasion.
"Ladies," she said in a solemn tone, "I deeply regret that this subject has been touched upon in a spirit of levity. It was my intention, at the proper time, to introduce a resolution of sympathy for those ladies who have been so summarily and I may say brutally unmarried by the unfeeling wretches who sit upon the bench of the Supreme Court. It is awful to think that our highly respected sisters, whose wealth alone should have protected them, have been told by the highest court in the land that they have been living in shame all this time, and that their children are not legitimate. Ladies, I call your attention to the fact that many of our own members are thus branded by those judges. It is infamous. It is more than infamous—it is a reason why women should sit on the judicial bench."
"Yes," I said, "it seems impossible for men to comprehend the mental or emotional processes of women."
"True, too true," murmured our President, giving me a look of gratitude. "I remember how the men of this country cried out against us a few years ago because they could not understand why we send flowers and tender letters to a poor, handsome negro who had first outraged and then murdered a woman."
"Yes," I said, "and no doubt they will pretend not to understand our indignation against this man Gorky, who thinks the customs of his own country justify him his terrible conduct. But we must be careful how we word our condemnation of this man lest he should somehow learn of what our Supreme Court has so wickedly done and retort on us that these, our wealthiest and most respected citizens, not being legally divorced and hence not being legally married again, are no better than he and his so-called wife."
The ladies looked at each other in consternation. Evidently the thought had not suggested itself to them. Mrs. X. Y. Z. Asterbilt (née Clewbel) rose and in a voice choked with emotion said:
"Speaking for myself as well as for some of the other ladies, members of this organization, who are temporarily déclassée, so to speak, by this decree of the Supreme Court, I beg that you will do nothing to call undue attention to us, until we have arranged matters so that our wealth will enable us to have that legislation which is necessary to make us respectable women again."
"Is it true," I asked, "that you have sent an invitation to Madame Andreieva to meet you to discuss the steps to be taken to reinstate yourselves?"
"It is true, but the extraordinary creature returned word that as a lady of good standing in her own country she did not feel that she could afford to associate with women whom the courts of this country held to be living in shame."
"Did you ever!" cried Mrs. Blanderocks. "But it shows us that we must be careful. Mrs. Grant, you have had experience in such matters, suppose you retire and draw up a set of resolutions that will not expose us to the ribald and unseemly comments of the light-minded."
Of course I accepted the task, fully realizing its gravity, and following is the resolution I brought back with me:
"Whereas, Maxim Gorky, recognized in the world of letters as a man of genius, and in the world at large as a man of great soul, high purpose and pure nature, having come to this country accompanied by a lady whom he considers and treats as his wife; and
"Whereas, The wealthy, and therefore the better classes, tumbled all over themselves in order to exploit him as a lion; and
"Whereas, He had not the wisdom and craft and sense of puritanical respectability to pretend that he did not know the lady he believed his wife, and to whom he believes himself united by a law higher than that of man; and
"Whereas, He was guileless enough to believe he had come to a free country where purity of motive and of conduct would take precedence of hollow and rotten forms; and
"Whereas, He did not know that the American people practise polygamy secretly, while condemning it in words, and that the United States Senate has been nearly two years in pretending to try to find a polygamist in their midst; and
"Whereas, He was so injudicious as to come here with a defective divorce just at a time when our Supreme Court was making the divorce of some of us, the gilded favorites of fortune, defective; and
"Whereas, He had the audacity to proclaim himself a Socialist, which is the same thing as saying that he is opposed to special privilege, and is in favor of the abolition of property in land and in the tools of labor—in other and plainer words, is against Us; and
"Whereas, He is only a foreigner, anyhow, and no longer available as a toy and plaything for us; therefore be it
"Resolved, That this man, Gorky, be used as a means of proclaiming our extraordinary virtue to the world at large, as a robber cries stop thief in order to direct attention from himself; that accordingly he be treated with the utmost outrageous discourtesy and hounded from hotel to hotel on the ground that such places by no chance harbor men and women unless they have passed through the matrimonial mill; that we withdraw our patronage from the revolution in Russia—not being seriously interested in it anyhow—and that we will show our contempt for revolutionary patriots by entertaining the rottenest grand duke in Russia if only he will come over to us, bringing his whole harem if he wish; that he is a reproach to us while he remains in this country, and that it is the sense of this great organization that he and the lady who is his wife in the highest sense shall be deported."
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