Page:Olive Malmberg Johnson - Woman and the Socialist Movement (1908).djvu/47

 Rh cialists are to each other not men and women, boys and girls, they are Comrades with equal rights and privileges. The gray-headed men and women veterans in the movement are the "Comrades" of the little boy and girl in the Young Socialists' Club. The very use of the term shows the beauty of the fact behind it. But the equality is not likeness. No one strives for likeness. Each seeks his or her place and does the work it requires, conscious of its value, whatever it may be. All cannot be speakers, editors, or writers, but all can work. The Comrade Editor is of small use without the Comrade that pushes the subscription list. The Comrade Speaker would have little to say without the Comrade that distributes the handbill. There is no sentimentality or brotherly or sisterly love about the comradeship. It implies only that all are co-workers with equal rights and equal duties, co-workers that can be controlled and criticized and corrected, co-workers that must be ruled by science, reason and order. It implies discipline as well as freedom, obedience as well as power.

The Socialist women have none of the obnoxiousness of the women's rights advocate. As a rule they are modest and quiet and proud of being womanly and ready for the work they can do, whatever it may be. They do not try to imitate man. Why should they? Their usefulness consists in being women! They do not aspire to the place of man. Why should they? They have naturally and easily made a place for themselves. They do not envy man. Why should they? They know that the misery of the working class is common to them all.

The question whether woman has a place in polities, has vanished for the Socialist woman. She has taken her place in the political campaign as educator and organizer and worker. The question of electing or being elected is the insignificant part of the Socialist campaign at the present time. The great question is to educate the working class to class consciousness and then organize them for united action both on the economic and the political field. The Socialist woman,