10 Reformers Debating In 1917

A popular item in our Ernest Bell Library – the book –

Mountain Meditations and some subjects of the day and the war. 

By Louise “Lizzy” Lind-af-Hageby – 1917

Lizzy was a member of the original Humanitarian League.

She worked closely with Henry S. Salt, Ernest Bell, Jessey Wade & the other active members.

Our collection of Lizzy’s books, journals, photographs, medals & pins is rarely ‘put away’ – it is being referenced by ‘someone’ most days of the year.

I am reading Mountain Meditations today – see below for the title page.

The section of the book which I have duplicated below, made me think about the various-quality of exchanges which happen in Facebook Groups, almost 99 years later, between various types of reformers……

reform

1. To improve by alteration, correction of error, or removal of defects; put into a better form or condition.
2.
a. To abolish abuse or malpractice in.
b. To put an end to (an abuse or wrong).
3. To induce or persuade (a person) to give up harmful or immoral practices; cause to adopt a better way of life.

As Lizzy notes (see below) –

Each cause can be endowed with an importance which outdoes all the others.

– but reformers cooperating together produce great changes.

So many of the vegans / vegetarians of the past were really great cooperators.

Lizzy herself worked on multiple fronts.

In this part of the book, she has 10 very different reformers, together in a room.

I have changed sections of the text into different colors to highlight the different standpoints.

They are talking together about: –

Education Reform

Socialism & Equal Human Rights

Parental Responsibility

Land Reform

Women’s Right to Vote

Temperance – Banning Alcohol

Vegetarianism

Christian Science

Fear of God

Pacifism – Anti-War Activism

p104 to p109

Each cause can be endowed with an importance which outdoes all the others. Education — can anyone deny the overwhelming need of proper concentration on its possibilities? “Here we have a generation of ignorant, selfish, immoral creatures, devoid of a sense of social responsibility,” says our first reformer; “why, the remedy is obvious: let us begin with the children in the schools. Is any one so dense as not to perceive the all-pervading importance of the guidance we give to the young?”

“It is no use beginning with the children whilst those who teach them are so hopelessly sunk in materialism and stupidity,” says our second reformer. “Look at the education laws; they are all ill-conceived and ill-administered. Education is not only a failure; it is a dead-weight of falsehood and class tyranny which hampers progress. Let us go straight for socialism and equal human rights and opportunities. Your education is only used to perpetuate industrial slavery and to keep the children of the working classes ignorant of the blood-sucking system into whose meshes they will be thrown unless we combine and make our influence felt now.”

“You are neglecting the most obvious duties which should come first,” says the quiet and motherly voice of the third reformer; “infants die by the hundred thousand owing to neglect. There will soon be no babies for you to instruct either in materialism or socialism. The race will die out whilst you talk. Look at the slums and the careless, ignorant mothers; we want infant-welfare work, we want a new baby cult, we want to teach people parental responsibility.”

“Nonsense,” breaks in the virile voice of the fourth reformer; “what you want is to take people away from the slums, to bring them back to the country. Land nationalization is what we need–a free, healthy life, far removed from the factories that kill soul and body by the grinding monotony of existence. Man was made for life on the soil, for contact with sun and wind, flowers and trees. They will give health and life to your babies.”

“Your schemes have only a secondary importance”–the voice of a prominent suffragist is now heard. “Give women the vote and these reforms will follow. Men have made all these abominable laws and customs; women will bring in just and human laws and change all social life. As for the suggestion that country life will improve the standard of living, I can only say that it is made in ignorance of the real conditions. Look at the farm labourer’s wife and her home-life. She is often the most miserable, worn-out creature, who tries in vain to keep the children and herself properly fed and clothed. Her life is a long travesty of the laws of health.”

“Naturally,” comments the temperance reformer, “whilst you allow the labourer to soak himself in drink and to spend his money at the public-house. Drink is the root of all our social troubles: it ruins the body and corrupts the mind, it poisons the unborn children, fills our prisons and asylums. You may legislate and equalize opportunities as much as you please; so long as you allow the cursed liberty of drink there can be no health and no human decency. Prohibition is the most urgent of all our needs.”

An athletic-looking young man, rosy-cheeked and clear-eyed, who had been listening with a somewhat supercilious smile, now joins in the debate. “There would be no need for you to bother about drink if you could persuade people to give up flesh-eating. Vegetarianism is the cure of all ills. It drives away disease and the craving for stimulants, it gives you pure blood and a desire for the really simple life. I live in a tent on ninepence a day and sleep in the open. I grow my own fruit and vegetables and do my own cooking. Thoreau is my master and Carpenter my friend. I hate smoky cities with their slums and their shambles and your whole sickly civilization.”

“Sickly!” repeats a Christian Scientist, with reproachful emphasis on the word. The speaker is a woman of sixty, whose face bears the stamp of successful self-discipline and a sound physique. “I have seen vegetarians who looked extremely sickly. Before I became a Christian Scientist I, too, sought health by various systems of diet. Now I know that all disease is but an error of mortal mind, and in Science and Health, by Mrs. Eddy, we are told—-“

She was not allowed to finish her sentence, for a Congregational minister, famous for his pulpit denunciations of sin, has risen and gravely waves his hand to ensure a respectful hearing. “All you people,” he says, in a voice vibrating with solemn indignation, “are pursuing fleeting shadows. The kingdom of God is within. This false cult of health by self-hypnotism, or health by living like the beasts in the field, gives undue weight to things which, after all, relate to the body. It is the soul of man that is important, not where he lives or what he eats. We need the fear of God and the thirst for His mercy; we need the Divine guidance which will transform and sanctify our social relations.”

“And pray how has the Church dealt with the war?” cries the pacifist who has now risen, his eyes ablaze with denunciation of the minister. “The Christian Church–established or unestablished–is nothing but the handmaid of the politician and the State, the servile echo of capitalists and diplomatists. You talk of Divine guidance and the sanctification of life. How do you respect life and the teaching of Jesus Christ? Jesus said, ‘Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, pray for them that despitefully use you and persecute you.’ You, His professed followers, bless war and its orgies of hate. You stand by hypocritically thanking God for your own sanctity, whilst Christians drench battlefields with the blood of Christians. The abolition of war is the reform to which you should all bend your lives and direct your prayers. Even now you have not learnt your lesson. Your social order, your laws, your constitution, your personal liberties, your lives and those of your children, are thrown to the Juggernaut of war, and yet you continue your futile pursuit of shadows. Without peace there can be no reform.”

The Vegetarian’s piece – p107 of the book

ninepence = pre-decimal UK currency – nine pennies

Thoreau = Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, and historian – here

Carpenter = Edward Carpenter (29 August 1844 – 28 June 1929) was an English socialist poet, philosopher, anthologist, and early LGBT activist – here

shambles = a private slaughterhouse

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In 1926 Lizzy predicted that – 

“Cruelty to animals will go the way of all forms of cruelty, when a real civilised existence becomes a possibility to everyone.” – Socialist Standard, February 1926

WW1 had ended – Women had the right to vote – ……but this was February 1926 – before The General Strike & before the imposition of Martial Law. 1926 was an especially ‘rough’ year for many people in Britain.

Now we are in 2015 – and we have yet to achieve a real civilised existence.

 The title page

Read online.

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The Publisher

George Allen, his children & Sir Stanley Unwin produced some wonderful & beautiful books.

George Allen (1832-1907) – born at Newark on Trent and apprenticed as a carpenter in 1849 to his uncle’s building business in Clerkenwell, London.

Met John Ruskin in 1854 when he joined the landscape drawing class at the Working Men’s College in Red Lion Square, London.

Became assistant drawing master and worked alongside John Ruskin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Lowes Cato Dickinson, later becoming Ruskin’s full-time assistant.

Trained as an engraver through Ruskin’s patronage and in 1871, also under Ruskin’s direction, formed the publishing house of George Allen in order to publish Ruskin’s works following his break from Smith and Elder. In 1901 his sons William and Hugh and his daughter Grace, joined the company and it became George Allen and Sons.

Allen died prior to the completion of The Works of John Ruskin: Library Edition: 39 Volumes which was not completed until 1912.

After two unsuccessful amalgamations, the company became George Allen & Unwin in 1914.

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Lizzy Lind-af-Hageby

Lizzy Lind af-Hageby was a Swedish feminist and campaigner for animal rights – source

Emilie Augusta Louise “Lizzy” Lind-af-Hageby (20 September 1878 – 26 December 1963) was a Swedish-British feminist and animal rights advocate who became one of England’s most prominent anti-vivisection activists. She co-founded the Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society (ADAVS), founded The Anti-Vivisection Review, and ran an animal sanctuary at Ferne House in Dorset with the Duchess of Hamilton. She became best known as the co-author of The Shambles of Science: Extracts from the Diary of Two Students of Physiology (1903), a diary of vivisection demonstrations she attended in London.

Our Ernest Bell Library copy of – The Shambles of Science.

An extremely rare book.

Most copies were destroyed after the ‘Brown Dog Trial’.

The Times declared itself satisfied with the verdict, though it criticized the rowdy behaviour of medical students during the trial, accusing them of “medical hooliganism,” while the Sun, Star and Daily News backed Coleridge, calling the decision a miscarriage of justice. Ernest Bell, publisher and printer of The Shambles of Science, apologized to Bayliss on 25 November, and pledged to withdraw the diary and pass its remaining copies to Bayliss’s solicitors.

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Lizzy mentioned in other articles here on HappyCow –

Anti-Vivisection Exhibition

Open the Doors!! – campaign of the – New York Anti-Vivisection Society

Vivisectors Stealing Dogs in London

Animal Defence and Anti-Vivisection Society badges & medals – here

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