From Time and Tide for July 16, 1926 pp. 648-649

I have been asked to write an account of the Freewoman, and those who asked me were wise, for that paper, unimportant as it was in content, – and amateurish in form, had an immense effect on its time. But unfortunately, I have forgotten nearly everything about it. It must have lived about 14 or 15 years ago, because I know I was about 17 or 18 years of age; and in the intervening years I have done so much else and have so completely lost touch with the other persons involved, that the details are fogged in my mind.

The paper was the creation of Dora Marsden, who was one of the most marvellous personalities that the nation has ever produced. She had, to begin with, the most exquisite beauty of person. She was hardly taller than a child, but she was not just a small woman; she was a perfectly proportioned fairy. She was the only person I have ever met who could so accurately have been described as flower-like that one could have put it down on her passport. And on many other planes she was as remark able. In her profession she had been more than ordinarily successful. Though she was still under thirty, she was head of a training college for teachers. She was one of the fighting suffragettes under Mrs. Pankhurst, and in the course of her activities she had shown courage that even in that courageous company seemed magnificent. She had been to prison more than once, and had behaved with what would have been amazing heroism in any woman, but which was something transcendent in her case, since she was physically fragile and the victim of a tiresome form of ill-health.

She conceived the idea of starting the Freewoman because she was discontented with the limited scope of the suffragist movement. She felt that it was restricting itself too much to the one point of political enfranchisement and was not bothering about the wider issues of Feminism. I think she was wrong in formulating this feeling as an accusation against the Pankhursts and suffragettes in general, because they were simply doing their job, and it was certainly a whole time job. But there was equally certainly a need for someone to stand aside and ponder on the profounder aspects of Feminism. In this view she found a supporter in Mary Gawthorpe, Yorkshire woman who had recently been invalided out of the suffrage movement on account of injuries sustained at the hands of stewards who had thrown her out of a political meeting where she had been interrupting Mr. Winston Churchill. Mary Gawthorpe, was a merry militant saint who had travelled round the provinces, living in dreary lodgings on $15 or $20 a week, speaking several times a day at outdoor meetings, and suffering fools gladly (which I think she found the hardest job of all), when trying to convert the influential Babbits of our English zenith cities. Occasionally she had a rest in prison, which she always faced with a sparrow-like perkiness. She had wit and common sense and courage, and each to the point of genius. She lives in the United States now, but her inspiration still lingers over here on a whole generation of women.

These two came together and planned this paper, but Dora Marsden played the chief part of organizing and controlling it throughout the whole of its life, for at that time Mary Gawthorpe was sick almost unto death.

Dora Marsden came to London with her devoted friend Grace Jardine, who was Martha to her Mary, and they found a publisher to finance them. At this point I had better remind my readers that again and again radical movements find themselves obliged to be financed by the insane. Radicals may take comfort in reflecting that the same is true of non-radical movements, but that the fact is so serious because there is no striking antithesis between such movements and their financiers. This particular gentleman financed not only the Freewoman, but Chesterton and Belloc’s The Eye Witness, and a fashionable illustrated paper. which was tended by a beautiful lady with red gold hair and decorative footwear. Her slippers gleam undimmed across the gulf of time; I have not been able to forget them. The movies had not come into their own, but she anticipated the anima of Mr. Cecil de Mille. He also published his own poetry, which consisted of Wordsworthian nature verse and Browningish monologues about he soul. One I remember particularly was a touching lament by St. Augustine on his own celibacy. And this gentleman also published, with the utmost generosity of terms, various books by young lions. For example, he brought out Katherine Mansield’s first volume of short stories “In a German Pension.” So we started in; or rather they did. I did not join them till later; in fact, I never wrote for the Freewoman till it had got such a bad name for its candour that I was forbidden to read it by my family, and thus I came to adopt my present pseudonym. The initial group consisted of Dora Marsden, Grace Jardine and a glorious red-haired bachelor of science, who had been in and out of gaol for the cause, named Rona Robinson. They went at first or all the conventional Feminist articles of faith. In their early numbers I fancy they represented as nearly as possible the same program as the National Woman’s Party. That program has certainly been accepted by English women of this subsequent period with an extraordinary completeness. I think there are probably hardly any subscribers to the quiet orthodox woman’s weekly of to-day, Time and Tide, who do not take it for granted that it is degrading to woman, and injurious to the race to leave the financing of the mother and her children to the double-barrelled caprice of the father and the father’s employer. They may differ regarding the specific remedies they propose to end this state of affairs, but hardly any of them would defend it. I am convinced that this change of outlook is partly due to the strong lead given by the Freewoman. But the greatest service that the paper did its country was through its unblushingness. It paralleled the achievement of Miss Christabel Pankhurst, who did an infinite service to the world by her articles on venereal disease. The content of them was not too intelligent. It blamed the impurity of men for a state of affairs to which the impurity of women and the social system are also contributory causes. But it mentioned venereal diseases loudly and clearly and repeatedly, and in the worst possible taste; so that England fainted with shock, and on recovering listened quite calmly when the experts came forward and said that since the subject had at last been mentioned they might urge that the state could do this and that to prevent these diseases. Even so, the Freewoman mentioned sex loudly and clearly and repeatedly, and in the worst possible taste; and likewise the content was not momentous. Those who laugh at Freud and Jung should turn back to those articles and see how utterly futile and blundering discussions on these points used to be even when they were conducted by earnest and intelligent people. But the Freewoman by its candour did an immense service to the world by shattering, as nothing else would, as not the mere cries of intention towards indepence had ever done, the romantic conception of women. It pointed out that lots of women who were unmated and childless resented their condition. It pointed out that there were lots of women who were mated and who had children who found elements of dissatisfaction in their position. It even mentioned the existence of abnormalities of instinct. In fact, it smashed the romantic pretence that women had as a birthright the gift of perfect adaptation; that they were in a bland state of desireless contentment which, when they were beautiful, reminded the onlooker of goddesses, and when they were plain were more apt to remind him of cabbage. If this romantic conception had been true, there would have been no reason for the emancipation of women, since as they could be happy anywhere and anyhow, there was never any need to alter their environment. It had to be admitted that women were vexed human beings who suffered intensely from mal-adaptation to life, and that they were tortured and dangerous if they were not allowed to adapt themselves to life. That admission is the keystone of the modern Feminist movement. Dora Marsden made her point with unique effectiveness, considering the length of the paper’s life. Nevertheless the paper was coming to an end psychically when it came to an end physically. Its psychic death was due to the fact that Dora Marsden started on a train of thought which led her to metaphysics. She began to lose her enthusiasm for bringing women’s industry on equal terms with men, because it struck her that industrialism destroyed more in life than it produced. She began to be sceptical of modern civilisation and this led her to preaching a kind of Tolstoyism which would have endeavoured to lead the world back to primitive agriculture. waged war with her on this point in a correspondence that the curious might hunt down in the files. I signed myself therein Rachel East. I got no chance to convince her, for already she had retreated to further remotenesses and was developing an egoistic philosophy on the lines foreshadowed by Max Stirner. About this time the brick fell. Our publisher fled suddenly to North Africa, with the lady of the shoes and a considerable sum of money which an unfortunate gentleman had entrusted him as an investment in the business. It then turned out that he was a criminal of a singular type; really a naïve moral imbecile. After various financial fantasias and a number of carelessly conceived and executed bigamies he had settled down as a publisher not a mile from our police department offices at Scotland Yard, and had there flourished for two years; and no doubt would have done so for many more years had not the young lions been so expensive and the lady with the shoes so desirous of foreign travel.

He was brought back and sent to a place of seclusion for some Mr. Chesterton and Mr. Belloc and Dora Marsden and her flock were homeless for a time. Then odd people turned up and financed it, and it was reissued as The Egoist, of which paper I was literary editor. That did not last long. My position seemed to me impossible. The routine of the office was not impeccable. There was an arrivist American poet who intended to oust me, and his works and those of his friends continually appeared in the paper without having passed me. This was unbearably irritating, particularly at that age. And Dora Marsden, more and more remote in her ether of speculation, could not understand it when I objected to articles which did not come up to a certain standard of taste and literary skill. So I quit. I am quite sure that she never understood why. An argument that there is relation between the expression and what is expressed, and that if the one is coarse the other is unlikely to be authentic, seemed to her a far away babble, for it was becoming less and less imperative for her to express herself. Hers was now to be rather than to do.

The paper lived some time after I left it. It did a magnificent thing for literature in publishing James Joyce’s “Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man.” Of its last days I cannot speak, for about that time ill-health fell on me and for long I was out of things. I have heard nothing of Dora Marsden for ten years or so. It may be that the wisdom she has obtained is not communicable, but I am sure to some far peak of wisdom she must have attained, and I cannot think that it is not good for the race when some of its component atoms reach projection, even if they cannot transmit it to their fellows. At any rate, Dora Marsden left us a heritage in the unembarrassed honesty of our times.

Der Geist issue 4 is now available! That creates a total of 724 pages of egoism from 1845 to 1945, with “lost” works reprinted, new translations every issue, rare photos and images, and new research and writing.

Available from: Underworld Amusements | Amazon.com | Amazon.UK | Barnes & Noble | Bookshop.org

In this issue, a previously undiscovered speech by Ragnar Redbeard; original translations of Max Stirner and Malfew Seklew; rare reproductions from Dora Marsden and Friedrich Nietzsche; individualists and eccentrics versus the KKK; and more.

DER GEIST, The Journal of Egoism from 1845 – 1945
ISSUE 4
Spring 2021
Paperback, 172 pages, fifteen dollars
ISBN 978-1944651-21-3
ISSN 2639-5339

Available from: Underworld Amusements

“Anarchists are an interesting body of people whom governments take too seriously and who, unfortunately, do not take themselves seriously enough.”  So begins Dora Marsden in this essay from The Egoist.

The Illusion of Anarchism was written in September 1914. Anarchism was so avant that Kropotkin was still alive. Britain was taking its first steps into World War One. The world was not yet on fire, but Dora was ready to stoke the flames against anyone who would dampen them.

Against the mutalist murmmering of anarchism comes Dora’s egoist exhortation that “men do not act after the anarchistic fashion one towards another. They are friendly and affectionate animals in the main: but interests are as imperative with them as with the tiger and the ape. [The world] is a bundle of interests, and falls to those who can push their own furthest.” But by its conclusion, The Illusion of Anarchism offers “the stirrings of a power sufficient” for anarchists willing to set aside their illusions.

The Malthusian League existed from 1877 to 1927. They attributed poverty not to class conflict but to overpopulation, and therefore advocated not socialism but birth control. “Overpopulation is the most fruitful source of pauperism, ignorance, crime and disease … the full and open discussion of the population question in all its necessary aspects is a matter of vital moment in society.” They encouraged “the elimination of unfitness […] not by restriction of marriage, segregation, or by sterilisation (which should be resorted to only in the case of those obviously incapable of self-control, such as lunatics and criminals), but by the inculcation of the great responsibility of parenthood and of the effects of such hereditary transmission, combined with a general knowledge of the most hygenic means of limiting families.” The reader will have to make an individual choice as to this being “family planning” or “eugenics.” What subject would you see banned were you an ecclesiastical adviser?

The leader of The Malthusian League in 1912 was Dr. Alice Vickery. Dr. Vickery was an advocate of birth control at a time when even public discussion of birth control was illegal. She also advocated a reduction in the stigma associated with illegitimacy, and in that she shared a symbolic stage with Leighton Pagan, author of For Love and Money.

The following appeared in The Thirty-Fourth Annual Report of the Malthusian League (London: William Bell 1912).

– Trevor Blake

An event of considerable importance during the year has been the advent of the new feminist newspaper: The Freewoman, under the leadership of Miss Dora Marsden and Miss Mary Gawthorpe, ably seconded by Miss Grace Jardine. This paper made its first appearance on November 23rd, 1911, and it has throughout been characterized by the most remarkable openness of mind and expression, no subject whatever seeming to have been banned. A series of articles on the population question from the feminist and economic standpoints were contributed by Dr. Drysdale [Vol. 1, No. 2 November 30, 1911], and produced the most animated discussion, in which a fair measure of agreement was shown with neo-Malthusian doctrines. Among the opponents it was interesting to note that some granted the laws of Malthus but objected to preventive means, while others advocated prevention for individual reasons and strongly challenged the population doctrine. It is greatly to be regretted that many Socialists still seem determined to heap ridicule and abuse upon the Malthusian doctrine, and their controversial methods make it impossible for any self-respecting person to argue with them. It is their refusal to recognize this doctrine which has hampered their own efforts, and the new Syndicalist movement appears to show that State Socialism is breaking down just as it appeared to be winning.

Mr. Fliigel [?] contributed two interesting letters to the discussion, upholding the neo-Malthusian side; and an interesting feature was the declaration by Mr. Upton Sinclair [Vol. 1, No. 9 January 18. 1912], in the issue of January 18, in which he warmly advocated family limitation and said, inter alia: “This new discovery of science gives us the means of putting an end to the horrible social disease of prostitution. The meaning of it is that the man can marry young, the woman can remain self-supporting, and they can have their children later on in life when they are in a position to support them. This is the way, and the only way conceivable, where prostitution can be ended. And yet, to think that our ecclesiastical advisers have caused the passing of laws against the spread of information about it!”

It is to be hoped that The Freewoman will long continue to do its remarkable work in introducing people, and especially women, to express themselves openly on vital questions.

As a result of the above discussion, several new members that join the league, and many inquiries for advice have been received.

It is quite a different phase of the war that Dora Marsden presents in a gloomy and foreboding prophecy. Miss Marsden, once prominent in settlement and suffrage work, “advanced” out of that stage to founding a very radical weekly, The Freewoman. Current opinion quotes the following from a recent article of hers in The Egoist, another radical English weekly:

The war – still the war – has brought the wordy contest about women’s rights to an abrupt finish, and only a few sympathetic words remain to be spoken over the feminist corpse.

Every form of self-responsible power demands – not the last, the first – capable physical self-defense. One might venture to say it would be impossible to find these islands in any “advanced” woman who has not felt herself made into something of a fool buy the unequivocal evidence as to the position of women presented by the war, not merely in the countries actually devastated by the war, here in England. They find that they may busy themselves with efforts to protect their less “protected” sisters; they may have the honor of being allowed to share in their country’s defense by dint of knitting socks; or serve, as one ungalant soldier put it, by providing one of the “horrors of war” as a Red Cross nurse. In the war area itself they form part, along with the rest of the property, of the spoils of the conquered. One cannot easily refrain from the inference that, though they have weakened the pull of the old-womanly competence, the “advanced women” have done very little in the way of furnishing the necessary foundations for its successor.

The second decade of the 2000s marks a near century of near-universal woman suffrage. But there was a time when woman suffrage was not universal, or universally desired. Some opposed woman suffrage because it went too far, others because it didn’t go far enough. Ellen Key and A. J. George were among the former, Dora Marsden among the latter.

Ellen Key (1849 – 1926) “[was never] opposed to woman suffrage, but only to the suffragists’ method of twisting it to fresh oppression of individual women and of woman’s own nature” according to Ellen Key: Her Life and Her Work by Louise Hamilton Nyström (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons 1913). In Love and Ethics (New York: B. W. Huebsch 1911) Key wrote…

[It] must still be insisted that the gains to society is nothing if millions of women do the work that men could do better, and evade or fulfill but poorly the greater tasks of life and happiness, the creation of men and the creation of souls. To fulfill these tasks properly women require the same rights as men, and until they have obtained these rights “feminism” has still all its work before it. But in proportion as woman acquire the right of suffrage, using this word not merely in its narrow political sense, but in all senses, the right of choice or selection in general – in proportion as they acquire this right they must learn to use it in the field of life. They must learn to know that their power is greatest in those provinces in which “imponderable” values are created, values which cannot be reduced to figures and yet are the solve values capable of transforming humanity.

Mrs. Andrew J. George of Brookline, Massachusetts addressed the United States Senate in opposition to woman suffrage on April 19, 1913. She also wrote several anti-suffrage pamphlets.

The quote from Dora in the second set of articles below comes from The Freewoman for November 23 1911 (Volume 1, Issue 1). The essay was called “The Bondwoman,” which I take to mean the opposite of ‘the freewoman’ (which in turn was not at all the same as being a suffragist, a suffragette or a feminist).

Anti-suffrage in the news a century ago…

Wrath of Antis is Stirred by Charges that They Use Questionable Tactics. Suffrage Foes to Keep Up Vitriolic Attacks

Cincinnati Enquirer of June 1 1914

Because the New England women’s suffrage Association and it’s forty-seventh annual meeting accused of the anti-suffragist of “the tactics of the polecat went badly frightened,” the National Association Opposed to Woman Suffrage is up in arms.

The end his report to the New England suffer just passed a resolution at their meetings, saying: “these are questionable tactics.”

The antis reported that the New England suffragists passed a resolution at their meeting, saying: “We denounce as a gross slander the charge of the anti-suffragist that equal suffrage means loose morals; and we protest especially against their attributes into prominent women’s statements which those women have been physically disclaimed.”

In commenting on this, Mrs. George, the leading platform speaker among the antis, says: “This is perhaps the most extraordinary resolution ever adopted by a public assemblage. Is this ‘woodsy’ metaphor a foretaste of the amenities in which political women will deal? These suffragists should not condemn their opponents, but should hasten to withdraw from the suffrage platform those who are preaching feminism. The resolution resolutions [sic?] should be aimed at the suffragist-feminists who are giving daily evidence of the tendency of the younger suffragists to work for ‘the social revolution’ promised by Mrs. Harper Cooley. A New York daily under date of May 26 quotes the Secretary of the National Suffrage Association as defining feminism as the rebellion against being ticketed and treated as somebody’s female relative. If this rebellion does not involve a social revolution what does it promise?

“Ellen Key and Dora Marsden are not antisuffragists in the sense that they oppose woman suffrage. They look upon woman suffrage as a part of this social revolution. Ellen Key pleads for the woman only as the mother of the child. Dora Marsden says, ‘The cult of the suffragists takes its stand upon the weakness and dejectedness of the conditions of women. The free woman’s concern is to see to it that she shall be in a position to bear children if she wants them, without soliciting assistance from any man, wherever he may be.’

“The feminists are the logical suffragists, who have the intellectual honesty to declare that you cannot change everything and leave everything unchanged, who seek the ‘social revolution’ and acknowledge the means by which they will bring it about, and these means include, although they may stop at such woman suffrage.”

And from the Atlanta Constitution of May 31 1914 (the Houston Post of July 18 1914 repeats the second paragraph):

There is a danger that, in the minds of the few people, there may exist to some confusion as to the relation between the so-called “feminist movement” and equal suffrage. The latter has always repudiated any connection therewith. As one of the distinguished leaders in national suffrage works said: “I do not know what this feminist movement is and I do not believe anyone else does.”

Ellen Key and Dora Marsden are two of the most conspicuous feminists of the world. Both are anti-suffragists. Ellen Key has never announced yourself the suffragist. Dora Marsden was, however, an active member of Mrs. Pankhurst association, the Women’s Social and Political Union. When she left the organization she wrote a frank article in The Freewoman – a magazine of which she was one of the editors – on the futility of the women’s suffrage movement. Since then, she has become an anarchist. These facts would seem to disprove the contention of certain anti-suffragists that suffragist and feminist are synonymous terms.