and cured." By its methods of
obscurity, disguise, and concealment, Puritanism has furnished
favorable conditions for the growth and spread of these diseases.
Its bigotry is again most strikingly demonstrated by the senseless
attitude in regard to the great discovery of Prof. Ehrlich, hypocrisy
veiling the important cure for syphilis with vague allusions to a
remedy for "a certain poison."

The almost limitless capacity of Puritanism for evil is due to its
intrenchment behind the State and the law. Pretending to safeguard
the people against "immorality," it has impregnated the machinery of
government and added to its usurpation of moral guardianship the
legal censorship of our views, feelings, and even of our conduct.

Art, literature, the drama, the privacy of the mails, in fact, our
most intimate tastes, are at the mercy of this inexorable tyrant.
Anthony Comstock, or some other equally ignorant policeman, has been
given power to desecrate genius, to soil and mutilate the sublimest
creation of nature--the human form. Books dealing with the most
vital issues of our lives, and seeking to shed light upon dangerously
obscured problems, are legally treated as criminal offenses, and their
helpless authors thrown into prison or driven to destruction and
death.

Not even in the domain of the Tsar is personal liberty daily outraged
to the extent it is in America, the stronghold of the Puritanic
eunuchs. Here the only day of recreation left to the masses, Sunday,
has been made hideous and utterly impossible. All writers on
primitive customs and ancient civilization agree that the Sabbath was
a day of festivities, free from care and duties, a day of general
rejoicing and merry-making. In every European country this tradition
continues to bring some relief from the humdrum and stupidity of our
Christian era. Everywhere concert halls, theaters, museums, and
gardens are filled with men, women, and children, particularly
workers with their families, full of life and joy, forgetful of the
ordinary rules and conventions of their every-day existence. It is
on that day that the masses demonstrate what life might really mean
in a sane society, with work stripped of its profit-making,
soul-destroying purpose.

Puritanism has robbed the people even of that one day. Naturally,
only the workers are affected: our millionaires have their luxurious
homes and elaborate clubs. The poor, however, are condemned to the
monotony and