Bernhardi: Germany and the Next War

Bernhardi argues that “war is a biological necessity of the first importance.”

War the Key to Healthy Development of Nations

Struggle

The struggle for existence is the basis of all healthy development

Struggle is a universal law of nature

War Leads to the Success of Growing Nations

Strong, healthy, flourishing nations increase in numbers

Conquest becomes the law of necessity to support the rising numbers of successful nations

The Right of Conquest

The right of conquest is universally acknowledged

The instinct of self preservation leads inevitably to war

The knowledge that war depends on biological laws leads to the conclusion that every attempt to exclude it from international relations must be untenable

Wright: The Unexpurgated Case Against Women Suffrage

Wright argues that allowing females to succeed with the womens’ suffrage movement would put them on equal terms with men and have a great negative impact on society.

Women do not represent the physical force in society

If women were permitted to rule over men in society, society would lose its military spirit and plunge into losing battles with other countries

Women have intellectual defects

Women have a very unreal picture of the real world

Women have all sorts of misconceptions about themselves

Women are morally defective

“One would not be far from the truth if they alleged that there are no good women, but only women who have lived under the influence of good men.”

Excess population of females in England: 3 million

There may be sexual complications when women begin to work alongside men

Woman’s position would be compromised

Men would no longer feel an obligation to care for their women economically

Loss of chivalry

"Why We Are Militant" by Emmeline Pankhurst

In a speech in the United States, Pankhurst expresses her ideas about women suffrage:

• Britain widen its suffrage to men three times after much rioting and violence
• After women have tried for years to gain suffrage peacefully, they have no more options but to be militant
• the women suffrage movement was almost dead until two women stood up in 1905 and asked a candidate when women would gain the right to vote
• Women must be militant to reach their goals and they are justified because of their the years of intolerance against them
• Women want to change the bad laws but cant without the right to vote
• The divorce and marriage laws are outdated and women need a voice to change them
• It is also and injustice that men receive higher wages than women for the same job
• Men are sympathetic of injustice in other countries so why aren't they sympathetic of the injustice to women in their own countries
• If men were treated the same way as women, they would not stand for it either

"The Yearning For Social Justice" by Nikolaus Osterroth

Osterroth describes the miserable working conditions of the mine:

• The miners must work long hours in grueling conditions
• Long term effects include elongated arms and crooked backs
• For the women who used to work in the mines, the work would cause premature births and damage to child-bearing organs

Osterroth's first acquaintance with the Social Democrats:

• With worker resistance against the new work rules, the miners turned to the Catholic Priests for guidance
• The Priests believe that God wants the miners to be humble servants to the mine owners
• The workers beleive that the priests should tell the owners that their actions are unchristian and hardhearted but instead the priests are accepting gifts from the owners
• Osterroth finds a Social Democrat leaflet and is encouraged by what he finds
• He agrees that the government and bourgeois had gone to far and it was time for the workers to unite through unions and stand up for their rights
• He is encouraged by the leaflet and decides to join the Social Democratic Party movement
• On May Day he gives a speech to demonstrate worker's solidarity and their defiance of capitalism

Herzl, The Jewish State

The Jews are one people, and deserve a country
-For hundreds of years the Jews have been forced to merge into other cultures
-They are oppressed and persecuted
-Most people still hold onto old prejudices against the Jews
-Jews are excluded from society
-This paper was not written to arose sympathy, but to gain support
-In Berlin, they yell "Juden Raus!" (Out with the Jews!)
-Where are the Jews to go 'out' to?
-We might stay, but we yearn to go home, to Palestine
-Creation of a Jewish state is neither ridiculous nor impossible
-The Jews deserve their own country

Friedrich Nietzsche "The Will to Power" and "The Antichrist"

Thesis: In The Will to Power, Nietzsche describes the basic animalistic drive for power that all men have. In The Antichrist, Nietzsche criticizes Christianity as a baseless religion that taught false morality and religion.

I. The Will to Power

a. Drive for power = freedom

b. Ethics – aimed at holding the desire for power in check

c. Society that gives up war and conquest = in decline

d. Democracy hates the will to power

e. Democracy – release of laziness, of weariness, of weakness

f. Order of rank is needed in “age of suffrage universal”

g. Order of rank determined by quantum of power

II. The Antichrist

a. Good – all that heightens power

b. Bad = all weakness

c. Happiness – feeling that power increases

d. Sympathy for weak is worse than any vice

e. Christianity – the religion of pity

f. In Christianity neither morality nor religion come into contact with reality at any point

g. Equal rights for all is a “poison of the doctrine”

From Myles Anderson: Mayhey on Prostitution

Statement of a Prostitute
I. Sixteen year old girl's stroy
A. Orphan who worked as a maid and was beaten by mistress
1. she ran away
B. She went to a lodging house for shelter
1. Saw and head many bad things
2. After several months, she was convinced to sleep with a young man whom she stayed with
3 months until he was taken to prison
3. She broke windows at a church so she could go to prison to punish herself
C. After she got out of prison, she continued living on the streets
1. At the lodging-house where she stayed, several dozen boys and girls would share one bed
2. They were all young
3. There was often fighting
4. Stole to so she could go to prison again to escape her life
D. After going to prison several times, she continues to lead the same life as before
E. the police ignore the things happening at these houses
F. All the boys and girls steal

From Myles Anderson: Drumont - "Jewish France"

Drumont:
1. conservative journalist, anti-semitic
2. Blamed Jews for contemperary degeneration

Jewish Fance
I. Comparison of Jews with Aryans (hostile to eachother)
A. Aryan means "noble", "generous" therefore Aryans have better morals than other races
B. Semites and Aryans have always been at war with eachother
1. Semites want to make Aryans servants
2. Modern Semites use tricks instead of violence and have infiltrated all of Europe
C. Semites are greedy and crafty vs. Aryans who are enthusiastic and chivalrous
D. Semites are Earthbound vs. Aryans who are connected to heaven
E. Semites follow instinct and take advantage of others vs. Aryans who are brave and devoted
F. Aryans are more creative
1. Semites steal Aryan creations

Reflections on Violence

Thesis: Sorel in this passage asserts the necessity of the myth of the general strike to overthrow the bourgeois society and violence if the workers are to fulfill their rightful place in the world.

• Economic progress profits future generations, but does it give the working class any glory?
• Workers see religion as a middle-class luxury, since the emotions it calls up are not those which inspire workmen.
• Does there exist among workmen forces capable of producing enthusiasm to lead society on the path of economic progress.
• Literature of the professors of rhetoric is mere chatter, and the attempt by scholars to find institutions in the past to use to discipline their contemporaries is a vain attempt.
• Morality is not doomed to perish as long as it can strengthen itself by an alliance with an enthusiasm capable of conquering all obstacles and prejudices.
• But this sovereign force will not be found among the paths of contemporary philosophers, inventors of reforms, and experts in social science.
• There is only one force, and that is the one resulting from propaganda in favor of a general strike.
• The idea of a general strike produces an entirely epic state of mind, and bends all energies for the realisation of better life for workers
• In the total ruin of institutions and morals there remains something powerful, the soul of the revolutionary proletariat.
• It will not be swept away in the general decadence of moral values, if the workers bar the road to middle-class corrupters with plainest brutality.
• Conditions necessary to allow the development of proletarian forces are violence enlightened by the idea of a general strike.
• It is to violence that Socialism owes those high ethical values by means of which it brings salvation to the modern world.

The Man Versus The State

Thesis: Herbert Spencer feared that growing government intervention in the economy and abandonment of laissez-faire would lead to socialism and slavery.

• Extension of this policy will create the idea that the government should intervene whenever something is wrong.
• It makes the assumption that it is the duty of the state to deal with all evils and secure all benefits
• Every extension of regulative policy involves an addition of regulatory agents, giving increasing power to the growing organization of officials
• Increasing power of a growing administrative organization is accompanied by decreasing power of the rest of society to resist its growth and control
• If this trend continues, it will lead to state-assumption of land, communication, and industry; private forms of which will die away
• These socialists are not thinking of accompanying pains, only promised benefits
• They are not regarding these evils as the ill-working of human nature
• Each member of the community will be a slave to the community as a whole.
• Slavery is the ultimate outcome

Inside the mind of the great FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE

[pictured: artist's rendition of an Übermensch, or "Superman"]

Although widely derided at the time for his radical opinions, Friedrich Nietzsche catalyzed a revolution of Western philosophy with his embrace of an irrational worldview and harsh criticism of established institutions.

Some context: it's hard to pinpointii one inspiration for Nietzsche. Many point to Spinoza, but Nietzsche himself called the Spaniard "

a masquerade of a sickly recluse."

Key tenets of Nietzsche's philosophy:

The condition of mankind is inherently irrational

Man's advancement is motivated by a Will to Power (Wille zur Macht), i.e. achievement and ambition, not some inner morality

Suffering is endemic to this existence -- it will always exist and be present

Certain men are better (i.e. more talented or capable) than others-- perhaps rooted in the evolutionary model

Thus, these

institutions are INVALID!!!!:

Platonic idealism: There is no dichotomy between the "ideal" and the "real": it's just one unified world

Christianity: for the same reasons as above. The idea that there is a higher power that will "redeem" all men abhors Nietzsche-- there is only one world, in which suffering is endemic. Christianity subsidizes mediocrity by promising fake redemption. GOD IS DEAD!!!!!

Democracy and socialism: these governments let the masses rule themselves. The masses are BAD. No good.

So what should we do?

Contrary to popular belief, FN is NOT nihilistic...there is a purpose in a purposeless world

The purpose of life should be to protect the strong, not to help out the weak.

We should cultivate SUPERMEN (Übermensch) in our society

(another modern interpretation shown)

William Booth: "Darkest England"

William Booth compares England to Henry Stanley’s description of the the brutality, slavery, and disease in “Darkest Africa”

Darkest England

Mirrors Henry Stanley’s description of “Darkest Africa.”

Booth compares Africa’s jungles to England’s cities

He sees as many terrors down the street in London as in equatorial Africa

Even equates the horrors in London to an attack of slave traders on an African Village

Compares the violation of women in the factories to violation of the captured slave women

Compares sweat system to the slave system and the bourgeoise capitalists in the House of Lords to slave traders

Compares malaria in africa to “defects” in the sanitary system in London that cause so many illnesses and deaths every year

Compares miseries that arise in Africa due to slave traders to the miseries in London that arise due to drink

Submerged Tenth

Booth claims he is advocating for those who 1) have no income of their own and 2) those who are unable to get the proper amount of food despite their utmost efforts to work hard

States it is impossible to attain the bare necessities for every Englishman

Claims that even horses have all the necessities that these humans are clambering for

NB: William Booth started the Salvation Army

Friedrich Nietzsche: "Teh Will to Power" and "Teh Antichrist"

THE WILL TO POWER:

-The man's most fundamental desire, his drive for power, must be checked

-Any society that instinctively gives up war and conquest is in decline

-Democracy represents disbelief in great human beings

-"At bottom we are one and all self-seeking cattle and mob."

-European democracy represents a release of laziness, weariness, weakness

-Rank is determined by power

-Annihilation of decaying races of Europe is needed

-Root of all evil has won

-Degeneration of rulers and ruling classes has caused the worst problems in history

-Single individual can justify existence of whole millennia

-"Not mankind but overman is the goal!"

THE ANTICHRIST

-Good=all that heightens power in man

-Bad=all that proceeds from weakness in man

-Happiness=the feeling of increasing power

-Sympathy for weak is worse than any vice

-Christianity is sympathy for the weak

-Christianity tries to break down higher men

-Christianity is the religion of pity

-All of Christianity is imaginary causes and results

-Christianity destroys courage and will to improve one's situation

Emile Zola, The Experimental Novel

Emile Zola

The Experimental Novel

Thesis: Emile Zola in The Experimental Novel treats literature as a science, that literature is in fact a study of the effect of individual on society and effect of society on an individual.

· Emile Zola (1840-1902) was one France’s great novelists

o Wrote a famous letter in 1898 in defense of Captain Alfred Dreyfus

o Description of Paris Slums made him famous both as a social critic and a literary innovator

· Emile Zola uses physiology to explain how science explains how man works from the mechanism of the organs.

· Emile continues that man is also influenced by society and his social condition.

· That literature is the study of the individual’s effect on society and the effect of society on the individual.

· Science wants to explain these conditions to be purely physical and chemical which aids him in finding the laws which govern them easily

· What constitutes the experimental novel:

o To posses a knowledge of the mechanism of the phenomena inherent in man

o To show the machinery of his intellectual and sensory manifestations, under the influences of heredity and environment

o To exhibit man living in social conditions produced by himself, which he modifies daily, and in the heart of which he himself experiences a continual transformation

· We learn to use science to solve scientifically the question of how men behave when they are in society.

· The experimental novel is a consequence of the scientific evolution of the century.

· The metaphysical man is dead; our whole territory is transformed by the advent of the physiological man.

· We have become experimentalists instead of philosophers

· The experimental method in letters, as in the sciences, in on the way to explain the natural phenomena, both individual and social, of which metaphysics, until now, has given only irrational and supernatural explanations.

Gustave Le Bon: Mass Psychology

Rob Edwards

Gustave Le Bon: Mass Psychology

• Gustave Le Bon was a french social psychologist with strong conservative leanings

• Thousands of isolated individuals can be extremely susceptible to mob mentality when the opportunity presents itself

• Whoever the individuals are that compose these crowds, regardless of their class, occupations, character, or intelligence, all become one collective mind

• A lot of times this is brought about by the unconscious dealings of the mind that far outnumber its conscious dealings

• The greater part of our daily actions are the results of hidden motives which escape our observation

• In a crowd, every act and thought is contagious

• People become the slave of the unconscious activities of their brains, and mob rule takes over

• Mob rule makes all people, no matter what their social class, act like uncivilized beast

• The ideas that take control of mobs are often the ones that are the most absolute and simple

• Crowds have a powerlessness to reason

• The leaders of these crowds are more frequently men of action than thinkers

• “Ideas, sentiments, emotions, and beliefs possess in crowds a contagious power as intense as that of microbes”

Jeanne Bouvier- The Pains of Poverty

Bouvier worked a 13 hour day and often stayed up all night continuing to work, but she and her family still often wanted for food.

-At age 11 she began to work at a factory for 13 hour days, although there were laws against it

-Sheriff came and took all their possessions

-Family forced to rent hovel, still not enough money

-Mother beat her for not getting raises at factory

-Factory foreman kept money for wages for himself

Groncourt Brothers, On Female Inferiority

Thesis: The Groncourt brothers believed that women were inferior to men both physically and intellectually. If a woman tries to improve intellectually then she becomes unbearable.

I. Women are only beautiful in their hips

II. Women are not naturally smart

a. Anything smart that they do is a product of rigorous education

III. Men like women who are always happy and does not try to improve intellectually

If a mistress tries to become more educated and talk about intellectual subjects with man she becomes very annoying and unbearable

"The Man Versus the State" Spencer

“The Man Versus the State” by Spencer

Thesis: Concerned about the shift of liberals to state intervention, Spencer stressed the necessity of traditional laissez-faire policies in order to avoid socialism and slavery by the government.

• The policy of those who support state intervention takes for granted the fact that evils can be removed from society
• That all “evils” should be dealt with by the state
• The more govt intervenes, the more they will demand for even more intervention
• Every extension of this policy calls for “growth of officialism” and increase of powers of officials
• The growing power of administrative govt brings the decreasing power of society to resist them and control their own life
• Coming slavery? à because this impending socialism involves slavery
• The changes will lead to state-ownership of land and communication and state-usurpation of industries (most of the private forums)
• Through govt-intervention, people’s liberty will be surrendered as “material welfares were cared for”
• Each person would be a slave to the community as a whole
• Liberalism should function in limiting govt power and Parliament powers

Osterroth, The Yearning for Social Justice

Thesis: Due to very harsh working conditions laborers found great appeal in the Social Democratic political agenda.

I. Conditions (especially in the mines) were very poor

a. Led to more discontent and calls for equality from the working class

II. Social democrats spread their word very aggressively

a. Osterroth became acquainted because of a pamphlet

b. The promise of equality was very alluring

c. The appeal of the right to vote and the opportunity to voice one’s own opinion was almost like a dream

Osterroth quickly joined forces with the Social democrats and helped spread their message

Émile Zola: “The Experimental Novel”

Rob Edwards

Émile Zola: “The Experimental Novel” (page 172)

• Émile Zola was one of France's greatest novelists

• He was unemployed for two years, and learned how much the poor really suffered

• Once he became a prominent writer, his descriptions of the Paris slums made him famous as a social critic

• The social conditions of france unceasingly modify the horrible physical conditions in which the poor people live

• Social conditions also completely affect the machinery of each man: how he thinks, how he loves, etc.

• “The metaphysical man is dead; our whole territory is transformed by the advent of the physiological man.”

• The experimental method in letters, as in the sciences, is on the way to explain the natural phenomena, both individual and social, of which metaphysics, until now, has given only irrational and supernatural explanations.

John Stewart Mill- The Subjugation of Women

Mill argues that women should be regarded as the equals of men, maintaining that the subjugation of women violates individual rights and hinders human progress.

-Women do not accept this subjugation

-They're protesting in multiple countries

-Not based on rationality, purely on the fact that women are physically weaker

-Women are enslaved to men, constantly told that they are meant to be submissive

-Women being attractive to men is the antithesis of their being educated

-There is no justification for not allowing men to vote

-Woman are just as capable as men of entering into and directing politics

The Goncourt Brothers: "On Female Inferiority"

Rob Edwards

The Goncourt Brothers: “On Female Inferiority” (page 224)

• Goncourt Brothers – Edmund and Jules, two French writers

• “Woman is an evil, stupid animal.... she is incapable of dreaming, thinking, or loving.”

• They can't create any poetry or things of that nature except what they are educated to create

• The female mind is inherently inferior to the masculine mind

• Women are also overly self assure, which allows them to be extremely witty with nothing but a little vivacity and a touch of spontaneity.

• Man on the other hand is endowed with the modest and timidity which woman lacks

• Women are unbearable if they try to act educated and on the same intellectual level as men

William Booth: "In Darkest England"

Rob Edwards

William Booth: “In Darkest England” (page 205)

• Founder of the Salvation Army

• He became a Methodist minster after a strong religious awakening during his teenage years

• In his book “In Darkest England and the Way Out,” he describes the misery of the poor and outlined his method of achieving spiritual salvation through social service

• England is filled with vice and poverty and crime

• He relates the poverty of England to the dark forests of Africa

• Many young women are often force to sell their bodies, because they face starvation if they don't

• England also wreaks with Malaria

• “The population is sodden with drink, steeped in vice, and eaten up by every social and physical malady”

Sigmund Freud - The Unconscious, Psychoanalysis, and 'Civilization and its Discontents'

Sigmund Freud outlines his theory of human psychology and the unconscious.

The subconscious mind influences our consciousness with incredible strength, yet we are not aware of our subconscious nor able to control it (at least not while in a conscious state) - as evidenced by post-hypnotic suggestion

Freud realized that uncovering the subconscious is crucial to fixing psychological problems - he found that he was able to recover long-lost memories from patients simpy by reassuring them that they could remember what was forgotten

Psychological problems result when our subconscious wishes interfere with our conscious ones and we submit to the subconscious - i.e. when subconscious impulses go against our ethical codes

Our subconsious impulses are inherently aggressive and savage, and it is these selfish impulses that cause discontent in society - hence, no government that relies on human "goodness," such as communism, will ever succeed

John Stuart Mill - The Subjection of Women

Mill argues for complete equality between men and women, citing that female subordination violates individual rights and stifles progress.

Female subordination never had any rational cause behind it, and was simply due to the fact that women are weaker physically

Despite women having accepted subordination in the past, they are now rejecting it in greater numbers and with larger force - proving their intelligence and ability to organize

The current social system enslaves women to their husbands and their sexuality

In preventing women from voting, men have violated the rights of half of the population for the purpose of maintaining their social position

Voting is a vital human right because it is a form of self-protection against the government, and denying this right to women is completely unjust

Women are just as wise and clever as men, and women participating in government would only strengthen the nation

Sigmund Freud: The Unconscious and Psychoanalysis

Sigmund Freud, the founder of psychoanalysis, specialized in the treatment of neurotic disorders. He believed that earlier traumas harbored bad thoughts in one’s subconscious, and only by bringing those past thoughts to the surface, could one free him or herself from emotional trauma. Freud also specialized in the role that dreams played in a person’s consciousness. These are some of the points from his works.

· The term unconscious designates ideas with a certain dynamic character, ideas keeping apart from consciousness in spite of their intensity and activity.

· When a patient prepares to perform a task under hypnosis, he or she will still perform the task when awakened, although having no memory of how or why he or she did it

· What they have appeared to have lost the memory of during hypnosis, can actually be brought up to the surface if a certain force commands them to remember how they created the thought.

o For instance, a psychiatrist demanding that the patient knows more although the patient believes he has told all that he remembers

· The force that was maintaining the pathological condition became apparent in the form of resistance on the part of the patient.

· Freud gave the name “repression” to this whole hypothetical process and considered that it was proved by the undeniable existence of resistance

· Traumatic memories that have been repressed in the subconscious, yet cause depression and other mental instabilities, can be brought to the surface through this process, thereby helping the patient cope with the trauma

· Secondly, Freud disputed the earlier theories that applauded the general goodness of man. He believed that man had a natural aggression towards his fellow men, “Homo homini lupus”, and that man was competitive for whatever reason that drove their existence (i.e. sexual partners, private property)

o In this way Freud disagreed with the views of communists, who believed that private property had corrupted man

Hermann Ahlwardt: The Semitic versus the Teutonic Race

Hermann Ahlwardt, an anti-Semitic member of Reichstag, addressed the chamber in 1895 advocating the closing of many German borders to Jewish immigrants. His speech entailed many of the conservative, German viewpoints at the time (before WWI). Here are some points in the speech:

· Jews as a whole must be considered harmful because they are of a different race than Germans

· They have entirely different traits

· The Jews do not believe in the culture of labor nor do they create values themselves

· However, they want to appropriate, without working, what others have created

· Wherever there are opportunities to make money, Jews are there – but not to work - rather make others work for them and take what these people have produced by their own labor

· Other immigrants gradually with time become German and prideful of Germany…Jews have been cheating since they originally came 700-800 years ago

· Jews are causing the death and pauperization of many hard-working Germans

· They are also causing them (Germans) to immigrate to the USA

· The German is fundamentally trusting, but a Jew feigns this trust in order to earn it from Germans and cheat the trustworthy Germans

· Wants a clean and reasonable separation of Jews and Germans by banning immigration of Jews in Germany

William W. Sanger's "Prostitution in Hamburg"

Thesis: In Sanger’s Prostitution in Hamburg, the author provides a clear look at the regulated prostitution that occurs in the city of Hamburg. While he admits that prostitution is ultimately a bad thing, he also admits that the regulated brothels provide a means of communication between the women and the police and therefore avoids numerous problems common among the unregulated prostitutes.

I. Local Writer’s Defense of Prostitution

a. Brothels – a necessary evil

b. Worse sexual crimes (adultery, rape, infanticide, pederasty, or sodomy) are less common in Hamburg than in Paris

c. “Private prostitution” a much greater evil than the public, regulated brothels

d. while brothels spread disease, they are regulated by the government to prevent this spread while private prostitution is not

e. suppression is impossible

II. Public Brothels in Hamburg statistics

a. Bothels under special supervision and control by police

b. Food and general conditions are good

c. Drunkenness rare in the brothels

d. Prostitutes themselves are idle and uneducated

e. Religion rare

III. Public vs Private Brothels

a. Public women serve everyone, rarely in love

b. Private women frequently find lovers

"The Odysses of a Prostitute" by de Maupassant

“The Odyssey of a Prostitute” Guy de Maupassant

Thesis: Hearing the stories of the miserable drop into misery of prostitution of girls, de Maupassant wrote this short story

• Prostitutes were running away from the police
• De Maupassant allowed one to stay with him to avoid the police and she explained her situation
• Her employer tried to take advantage of her
• She fled once her employer, M. Lerable, tried to kill M. Dutan, who was with her one night
• She ran away and then the police accompanied her to Rouen since she was a young lady
• She was scared that they would imprison her; however, she went to jail after being awoken by cops in a meadow until they found out who and what she was
• They pronounced her not guilty of the murder
• Then after going to the judge for help and receiving five francs to live on, she thought the “young men are all right for a bit of fun”
• She then believed that older, more wealthy men could give more money
• She ended up in Paris
• She walks away from de Maupassant after finishing the story

The Pains of Poverty and WHY WE ARE MILITANT

Jeanne Bouvier

The Pains of Poverty

Thesis: While Bouvier worked a 13-hour day and then the rest of the night so her family could survive, but even with this amount of work a family could barely make it in the economy of the time.

· Jean Bouvier (1865-1964)

o Worked in factories and domestic service and then in middle age she became a militant trade unionist and feminist

o Later in life she wrote several books, including her memoirs, from which the passages on the living and working conditions are taken.

· Began working at 11 years old in a silk-throwing factory from 5 in morning to 8 at night earning 50 centimes.

· Law in 1840 was passed to make illegal for children under 12 to work more than 8 hours but it was never enforced and that is why she worked five too many.

· Family too poor to pay their rent and sheriff’s office came for their belongings they were simply very poor and Bouvier describers how deeply ashamed she felt.

· After being forced to rent an old hovel Bovier now must also work after her 13 hour day in an attempt to help keep bread on the table but often their was none.

· Bouvier would stay up all night working and still be without food for days at a time.

· Her mother beat her when she would not receive raises and would call her lazy.

· Explanation for not getting the raises in the old factory was that the foreman was keeping the wage increases.

Emmeline Pankhurst

WHY WE ARE MILITANT

Thesis: Emmeline Pankhurst defends militant behavior for woman suffrage on the grounds that it is the final resort to advance their cause.

· Emmeline Pankhurst (1858-1928) leader for woman sufferage

o Engaged in demonstrations, disrupted political meetings, and when dragged off to jail, resorted to passive resistance and hunger strikes.

o 1913 Emmeline carried her appeal to the United States, where she delivered this speech.

· Emmeline argues that the extensions of suffrage in 1832,1867, and 1884 were the direct results of the violence enacted for this cause, and the reason women suffrage which has more support than any other reform does not get it is because they were constitutional and law-abiding.

· Emmeline argues that the only justification for violence is the fact that you have tried all other available means and failed to secure justice as a law-abiding person.

· Emmeline counters the argument that people say they should to go their representatives by showing that as women they are voteless and unable to even get the ear of Members of Parliament, much less secure those reforms.

· Points out unfairness of the marriage and divorce laws

o Mother has no rights over her children

o A man can even bring a mistress into the house

· Women suffer the same industrial hardships as men.

· Points out men in other nations fighting for independence are given more sympathy than the women of their own country fighting for the same thing.

· Points out that men view woman as sub-human species.

The Yearning for Social Justice

Thesis: In this passage Nikolaus Osterroth explains how the cruel treatment and conditions of working as a clay miner and the indifference of the church led him to be a fervent supporter of the Social Democratic Party.

• Clay mining was a brutal and exhausting work; one couldn't do it for three hours without having their hands become completely exhausted.
• The mine owners responded to hard times by reducing production costs at the expense of the workers' wages.
• They turned to the church, but the priest ignored their pleas, saying that they must accept their employer as an authority sent by God that must be obeyed.
• Osterroth and his fellow workers realized, to their outrage, that the priest was the tool of the upper classes to keep the lower classes obedient through religion.
• The Social Democratic Party appealed to them in a leaflet, explaining to them the injustice of the government and bourgeois parties
• Osterroth realized that the tax system spared the ones who could best pay and plundered those who already despaired of life in their misery.
• Osterroth was greatly attracted to the ideas and company of those in the Social Democratic Party. Their ideas to unite the workers into a union to counter the employers with the power of united action appealed to him.
• Soon Osterroth was making speeches and handing out leaflets, telling workers that the only deliverance would come from the working class itself, and that the working class must not be divided in this effort against the upper classes

Why We Are Militant- Fight for Women's Suffrage

Thesis: Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the women's suffrage movement in England, argues that women need to be militant to gain suffrage because it is the only way to do so.

• Trusting that the vote for women will come through gradual evolution is a naive hope
• The reforms for the extension of men's suffrage in 1832 and 1867 came during a time of violence and rioting. Only violence will accomplish it for women as well.
• Previous attempts to gain women's suffrage the law-abiding way have accomplished nothing.
• Militancy helped revive the Women's suffrage movement to nearly 50 societies.
• We have exhausted every other means of gaining the vote. Violence is now the only option.
• The marriage and divorce laws are a disgrace to humanity, giving men all the power and leaving women to risk their lives to bring children into the world without any parental rights over their future.
• Men feel sympathy for other men who are fighting for freedom and suffrage, but scoff at the idea of women gaining those same rights.
• Men either think women are superhuman or subhuman; either way not deserving of the vote.
• Women are human beings just like men.
• It is frustrating for women when ideas of liberty, fraternity, and equality are not for them.
• They was never a thing worth having that was not worth fighting for.

The Pains of Poverty - Jeanne Bouvier

Bourvier describes her plight as an impoverished child and industrial worker, highlighting the hardships and social injustices of lower-class life.

• The author works in a textile factory, working 13-hour shifts (technically illegal for a child) and earning 3 francs every week
• Her family is extremely poor, with her father out of work and her furniture confiscated by the sheriff after the family failed to pay rent
• She becomes so depressed from her condition that she contemplates suicide at age 12
• On one occasion, she had to endure two days without food or sleep during a snowstorm
• She is always told by her employer that she will be given a raise the next week, but she never receives one because the foreman takes it all for himself

“While poor little unfortunates like myself endured poverty and received beatings, he kept the money”

Kishinev Pogrom, 1903

Kishinev Pogrom 1903

Thesis: From1881 to 1921, there were large scale mob attacks against Jews. However, the Kishinev Pogrom left a lasting impact on Jewish minds.

· Sunday afternoon – a crowd of men appeared on square Novyi Bazar, acting frenzied

· Shouting to beat the Jews

· Systematic destruction, pillaging, and robbing of Jewish houses and shops

· If any Jew resisted, they were beaten

· Christians too added into the riots against Jews

· 5 P.M. – 1^st Jew was murdered; beaten to death

· Jews gave4 up all attempts at self-defense

· Jewish butchers on Novyi Bazar fought back and beat the attackers

· But police came and arrested the Jews

· 10 P.M. – seven more murdered à Jews were in “indescribable fear”

· Weapons used: axes, iron bars, clubs

· All men wore same outfit: red workshirts

· All Jewish houses painted with white chalk

· Organization of permanent info and communication network among various gangs

· 49 Jews murdered in Kishinev à most suffered abuse and torture

· All layers of society joined in the pogrom

· If Jews offered nothing to gangs, or if the gangs were in murderous mood, the men were beaten and killed

· Next morning – Jewish band hurried to Governor to plead for protection

· Governor refused to accept telegram/help

· Therefore, gangs could count on support of highest authority

· Gruesome acts of violence spread like wildfire

· Officials and policemen enjoyed vodka and beating women until they bled

· Inhumanities committed during pogrom

· Eyewitnesses and testimony of Christian physicians and Russian newspapers

· Synagogues stormed and plundered; and the Torah was defiled

· Barbarism is appalling