Page:Emma Goldman - Anarchism and Other Essays (2nd Rev. ed.) - 1911.djvu/282

Rh battle with life has but one weapon, one commodity—sex. That alone serves as a trump card in the game of life.

This blind fatalism has made of woman a parasite, an inert thing. Why then expect perseverance or energy of Laura? The easiest way is the path mapped out for her from time immemorial. She could follow no other.

A number of other plays could be quoted as characteristic of the growing role of the drama as a disseminator of radical thought. Suffice to mention The Third Degree, by Charles Klein; The Fourth Estate, by Medill Patterson; A Man's World, by Ida Croutchers,—all pointing to the dawn of dramatic art in America, an art which is discovering to the people the terrible diseases of our social body.

It has been said of old, all roads lead to Rome. In paraphrased application to the tendencies of our day, it may truly be said that all roads lead to the great social reconstruction. The economic awakening of the workingman, and his realization of the necessity for concerted industrial action; the tendencies of modern education, especially in their application to the free development of the child; the spirit of growing unrest expressed through, and cultivated by, art and literature, all pave the way to the Open Road. Above all, the modern drama, operating through the double channel of dramatist and interpreter, affecting as it does both mind and heart, is the strongest force in developing social discontent, swelling the powerful tide of unrest that sweeps onward and over the dam of ignorance, prejudice, and superstition.