Page:Emma Goldman - The Social Significance of the Modern Drama - 1914.djvu/306

 he is here for another's benefit—for someone better. . . a hundred years. . . or perhaps longer. . . if we live so long. . . for the sake of genius. . . . All, my children, all, live only to give birth to strength. For that reason we must respect everybody. We cannot know who he is, for what purpose born, or what he may yet fulfill. . . perhaps he has been born for our good fortune. . . or great benefit."

No stronger indictment than "A Night's Lodging" is to be found in contemporary literature of our perverse civilization that condemns thousands—often the very best men and women—to the fate of the Vaskas and Anyas, doomed as superfluous and unnecessary in society. And yet they are necessary, aye, they are vital, could we but see beneath the veil of cold indifference and stupidity to discover the deep humanity, the latent possibilities in these lowliest of the low. If within our social conditions they are useless material, often vicious and detrimental to the general good, it is because they have been denied opportunity and forced into conditions that kill their faith in themselves and all that is best in their natures.

The so-called depravity and crimes of these derelicts are fundamentally the depravity and criminal anti-social attitude of Society itself that first creates the underworld and, having created it, wastes much energy and effort in suppressing and destroying the menacing phantom of its own mak-