CZM Book Club Presents: The Evolution of an Agitator, by Lizzie M. Holmes

it's going to be exciting. I believe it in my heart. Anyway, this week, I am bringing you more nineteenth century well actually early twentieth century in this case anarchist fiction because I am on a kick and I'm enjoying kind of looking at all the different ways that people did political

fiction over the course of the years. And largely what I'm finding is that people wrote really bluntly about radical ideas, and I don't know, I find the way that fiction as a form slowly shifts over the centuries to be fascinating. That said, today's story it's very bluntly political, but it's still weirdly more nuanced than some other stories that I've read you. And it's by an early anarchist feminist named Lizzie M.

second generation radicals that I've ever read about. But her mom was a freelove advocate, and she grew up partly in a free love commune, and her mother wrote for the magazine The Free Love and I believe anarchist second guessing myself off the top of my head, newspaper called Lucifer the light Bringer, which is a name that goes hard for a night nineteenth century newspaper, Lucifer the light Bringer,

That's what her mom wrote for. Lizzie herself grew up to become one of the more important labor organizers in Chicago. She started off as one of the only women in the Nights of Labor, which was a more liberal organization, despite having a name that goes hard. And then later she met a woman that I talk about all the time, Lucy Parsons, who was born into slavery and became a prominent socialist and anarchist and a labor organizer in Chicago.

And so she meets Lucy, and Lucy's like, ye have a checkout anarchy and checkout socialism, And Lizzie's like, yep, that sounds good to me, Sign me up. And so she started working for a newspaper called The Alarm in Chicago, which the editor was Lucy Parson's husband, Albert Parsons, who you might remember as one of the people who was hanged by the US government literally just for being an anarchist.

He was hanged in eighteen eighty seven, And so Lizzie's boss got hanged, and Lizzie herself and her good friend Lucy Parson spent a while in jail as a result of all this stuff. But she went on to live her life, and she wrote a lot of fiction and other stuff over the years, and eventually she married this other anarchist guy, and they moved to the Southwest and sort of got to live happily ever after, in a way, kind of disappearing from public life in nineteen oh eight,

but not before. In nineteen oh five, I think she wrote this story called the Evolution of an Agitator. Some years ago, a young minister of the Gospel was given charge of a good sized church in the southwestern part of Chicago. He had shown such marked ability, such eagerness and enthusiasm in the care of a small village pastorate that his superiors thought he must have a larger field on which to expend his power, and resolved to promote him.

So they placed him over this church, situated in one of the most populous districts in the city, where people were nearly all poor. If plenty of work was promotion, young de wilt Stillman was certainly promoted. The neighborhood consisted

of the so called lower grade of workmen. They were indeed lower in point of pay, such as railroad grade hands, sewer diggers, stone breakers, and the cheaper sort of hucksters and peddlers, with a large circle of hangers on, men who had no trade or regular occupation, but did what they could find to do honest or otherwise. Such a neighborhood promised plenty of work for an energetic and devoted disciple of the Lord. His first great aspiration was for

the saving of souls. To win souls from the sins of the world and have them sanctified for heaven seemed to him the greatest and holiest work he could could engage in, and from the day he was ordained, he sat in his study or paced the floor day after day, searching for burning thoughts and burning words in which to express them. And here he renewed his efforts. He studied, he racked his brains, he wrestled with the Lord for strength and wisdom to present in vivid form the truths

of the Gospel. And for three successive sundays he gave the brilliant results of his travail to the small congregation of respectable, well to do people who were scattered over the body of his comfortable church that for all looked very big and empty. He was well liked and well praised as a bright and promising minister, but he was not satisfied. He felt that people he talked to did

not need his passionate devotion of soul. He wanted to reach the really wicked, the sinful, the wretched, the degraded. He felt that he had a message for them, and if they would not come to him, then he must go to them. He gave the subject a grint great deal of prayer and thought, and finally began to visit the most crowded, the poorest looking places in his district.

It embarrassed him at first to intrude into these wretched homes with no errand which he could explain in the first few moments of greeting, the inmates gaped at him in wonder, as though expecting him to state his business and get out. But he was too thoroughly in earnest to be long at a loss. Gradually he began to find out what to say to them, how to get in touch with them, how to encourage them to look

upon him as their friend. They were as strange new people to him, a newly discovered race, as it were, and he had their language to learn as well as to teach them his. And slowly, slowly they began to talk to him, to let him into the tragic secret of their lives, their poverty, their ignorance, their helplessness, and the vortex conditions which surrounded and overwhelmed them, and which

they could not understand. It was like receiving new revelations every day of a new world, of new sensations, new experiences, new conditions, things he had never dreamed of before. In the face of that, he learned it seemed impotent to ask them why they did not come to church. How would they be received by his congregation were they to come into church in their rags, as many of them must, If they came at all. The railroad men worked on Sunday when they worked at all. For corporations do not

lay off men for sabbath. Factory women worked all day Sundays for themselves, or they could never be neat and whole. And many were too wretched and hungry to sit and listen to a sermon throughout a whole forenoon. He was literally appalled, almost paralyzed, at the poverty he found, the universal, dragging,

haunting poverty. He had never dreamed of such things. He had supposed, in a vague sort of way, that when people were overtaken by extreme poverty, it was due to some unusual misfortune, or their own carelessness, or ship lifelessness, or perhaps to drunkenness and evil habits. For surely, he had thought, in this land of plenty, no one need remain in a condition of squalor if he tries to get out. But he had seen enough with his own eyes.

He had seen strong men, able and eager to work, begging for a chance day after day in vain, growing more gaunt, more haggard, more desperate, and less able to work as each one passed. He had seen frail women with strained emaciated faces, fighting the fierce specters of hunger for their little ones with a puny needle or washboard, almost in vain, for the specters gnawled and snapped at their bodies and glared in at their windows at night

despite their efforts. He had seen little children clawing over a slop barrel, searching for something that might be eaten. He had seen men and women sink down in their harness and die with overwork and too little nourishment. He had not the face to go to such people and ask them to prepare for future life. What chance had they in this one? It cannot be possible. There was a future of torment for people whose whole existence was a struggle against the sufferings of want. God was good,

he believed that. Yet, and you know what else is good? Everything that advertises on this show, it's always good. No, I can't tell you that it's really a crapshoot. Who knows what's advertised. You'll find out, or you won't. You'll press the skip button, or you'll have cooler zone media, in which case you just hear me cutting into ads and then no ads. But here are the ads if

you have them. And we're back. And these conditions of poverty were not due to any unusual emergency or catastrophe, something that would pass away and leave them in a normal, comfortable condition and time. No, these men and women and children were constantly living on the verge of death and despair. A hard winter was coming on. A great many men thronged the city who had no work and no homes, and were already crowding the police stations and the tunnels

under the river for shelter at night. Something must be done. He could not bear it, He could not sleep at night for thinking of the misery. The rich must give their abundance. These poor must be relieved, The wealthy must be made to feel the sufferings. If burning words could do it, and this from hence should be his life work. He resolved anew others might save their souls. He would devote himself to saving their bodies, then their souls if

he could. He sent out a general request to his members to attend the next Sunday morning services, and then he prepared his sermon in agony, in stress of soul and struggle of spirit. He built up his great sermon, and the next Sabbath morning, he poured it over the heads of his hearers like lava from a volcano. They were aroused, astonished, thrilled, and moved until they were ready

to do almost anything. He proposed a Friday evening gathering, to which his hearers should bring food, clothing, money, anything which the needy could use, and he appointed a committee to go out among the poor and bring in the most destitute, to tell the people that whenever they were in great need of any of the necessities of life and could not procure them by their own exertions, to come there on Friday evenings and their needs should be satisfied.

The people responded with wonderful alacrity and spirit. On the next Friday evening they came in throngs, bringing clothing, provisions, coal, and even money to the amount of several hundred dollars, until it would seem that no one need go hungry and cold. Ah, he exclaimed joyfully, that was all that was needed, A warn, appeal to those who have for those who have not. I knew the world was not

hopelessly selfish. Presently the poor began to come, shirkingly, doubtingly at first, fearing some trap, so unused were they to such kindness. But when they found that the gifts were without condition except their need, they came in throngs, some with tears, some with glad smiles, some humbly, and some boldly and defiantly, as though what they received was what they should have had long before. And the Friday evening

meetings became an institution of the city. That winter, people in other parts of the city heard of the movement and brought their gifts. And not from that district alone came the poor, but from every quarter of the city, homeless, haggard men, worn whan women, neglected children, the worthy, poor and the unworthy. And none were sent away empty handed. Only in extreme cases was money given, and then the

cases were or thoroughly investigated. Mister Stowman believed he had his charities well systematized, and he had faith in the goodness and the usefulness of his work. Of course, now and then some came who did not need charity. The professional beggar, the habitual drunkard, the shrewd gammin of the street were often in evidence, and many a pitiful story was trumped up to get a hold of some of the money, And of course the Reverend doctor de Witt

Stowman was severely criticized by the wiser ones. He was spoiling the poor they would never try to help themselves as long as they could come to the church for what they needed, and he was encouraging to sit and dependency.

Mister Stillman heeded criticism when he could. He organized a self help club designed to help men out of unemployment into positions, and to show women and children what to do to earn a little money, and he instituted some lectures during the evening while some were being waited upon in the rooms below. The audience room was thrown open for those who had listened to the good speakers. Encourage his hearers to sobriety, industry, economy, et cetera. But these

efforts seemed fruitless. There was simply no work to be had anywhere. The new vacancies that occurred occasionally were snapped up by men who could yet make a respectable appearance. They were not for the men from Stillman's charity. Every possible means of making a little money for women and children had already been utilized by hungry men and the poor people who were so kindly advised only cried helplessly and murmured, Oh sirs, we do as we can, and

as we must. We can't save when there is so little anyway, And as for the drop o beer of an evening, what else have we got to cheer us up? And worst of all, there seemed to be no end, no cessation to this terrible destitution. For all their marvelous work, the stream of poverty flowed on without any decrease that he could see. The poor woman with her four children suppor on one Friday evening was there again just as

cold and needy the next Friday night. The out of workmen turned up week after week as miserable and gaunt as ever, the hungry children were as numerous and deplorable as in the beginning. Mister Stowman began to realize that charity was no remedy for poverty. It might be a little relief all he could pour into the vortex of misery that swirled round in the city affected it as nothing. But you know what, he didn't try. He didn't try taking advantage of these sweet, sweet deals that probably would

have fixed all the problems. I can't come up with any reason why they wouldn't here's.

subject to criticisms and questions. Surely the truth could be reached at last in some way, as in temperance so often had been blamed for the poverty of the people. He asked a great temperance lecturer to fill the rostrum on the next Friday evening. He was very eloquent and brought tears to the eyes of many. But a critic in the audience showed that under the condition laboring men lived either exhausted with toil or disheartened hunting for a

chance to toil. They were obliged to go to the saloon. They needed some relaxation, and a nickel would bring them a little sociability. Warned warmth and good cheer nowhere else as it would at the saloon and back of the poor consumer was the army of men engaged in producing, distributing, and dealing with liquors in various ways. If the temperance cause should be effective, what would become of these men? Was there room among the other wage workers for them?

They all knew there was not. He engaged a single taxer, who was likewise criticized and questioned, but he gave much food for thought, and Stowman was convinced that the earth not beheld as private property if poverty were to be banished. He invited some noted philanthropists with cooperative and colonization schemes

to offer, and these also started some deep thinking. He had able trade unionists who ably and effectively advocated the universal organization of all laborers as a remedy for poverty and involuntary idleness. Socialists of all shades of belief, even anarchists, occupied his platform at different times that winter and the next, whilst still the work of check was continued in the

rooms below. Mister Stowman became more and more interested in these radical practical questions, and almost gave himself to the study of them. But of all he heard he could not immediately make up his mind which was correct. But some of the fundamental principles that underlay all of them he was ready to accept. But meanwhile his congregation was

becoming dissatisfied and uneasy. Where was he leading them? What an amount of crazy, incendiary talk they had listened to in his lecture room, and how little of gospel doctrine he himself had given them in the last year. They were compelled to speak to him about it, And soon mister Stowman found that he would probably be without a pulpit if he continued his present career. It was a serious problem to him, for he had not been brought

up to do anything else but preach. He might find himself in the position of men he had tried to help, forced to hunt in vain for a job. But what else could he looked to for real help to the

poverty of stricken masses. He had not been able to find the answer to the question of why poverty should ceaselessly exist in a world of plenty, either in the religion he had loved so well, in the study of ethics alone, or in the charity or sympathetic sentiment, or in intellectual pursuits per se in the field of economic research alone was any possible chance of an answer to be found, And he must not be afraid of the answer. It might upturn every preconceived idea he had ever cherished.

It might topple over all his gods, smash all his prejudices, destroy much that he had worshiped as beautiful and good. It would destroy friendships and loves. And he saw only a lonely, persecuted pathway ahead of him, saw himself maligned, misrepresented, neglected, and unloved. But he could not turn back. He gave up his honored position as a beloved minister of a popular conception of the Gospel, and went forth to preach what is more nearly the gospel that Christ taught, and

to receive more nearly the treatment accorded to him. But he is helping the world to find the answer.

very well. The trifail sequence is this very normal way for stories to be written in which a character has a problem and he tries to solve it, but he doesn't succeed at solving it, and so then he tries again to solve it and he doesn't succeed at solving it, and then he tries again, and then he usually succeeds or fails. That's a very common storytelling method and this absolutely follows that, which is interesting because it's from one

hundred and twenty years ago. You know, he tries first by just you know, doing the gospel, and that's like not working. So he tries again with charity, and that's not really working, and so he tries again by bringing in the like learned speakers to talk about all the things, and that's not enough either. And what he has to

do is become a seeker. And that's what I like about this story is that it's not like And then he brought in the anarchists, and the anarchists were right, and everyone was like, ah, yes, class war, that is the solution. The class war needs two sides, you know. But he's also not like, oh, those people had nothing to say. He's like, I'm going to go become one of those people. I'm going to go. Look, I'm going to go try and learn what's necessary to end the

abject poverty that people live in. And you know, and it avoids easy answers and including avoiding the easy ana sert of anarchism, which I just I feel like is like the most anarchistic way to write fiction, right, like Ursula Lagwinn taught us that with the Dispossessed, and this is the way the hell older than that. But I also find it interesting that this was written in nineteen oh five, three years before Lizzie kind of stopped living public life and stopped writing and just sort of lived

in the Southwest to their husband. And don't really know what she got up to. Then maybe someone does. I haven't read whole books on her or anything like that. You know, this idea that you spend your whole life looking for the solutions to these problems and you might not find them, but the searching has a real value and a thing that I keep running across when I read this older fiction. You know, this is absolutely in

the no Gods, No Master's era of anarchism. This is absolutely in the era of like, you know, the church is this great evil, but even during that era, people are very aware of that. Often it's people who are interested in these questions who are within religious institutions as well, even if the institutions themselves are not the answer. And so yeah, I just I like the complexity of this simple story, and I expect I'm probably going to try and read more of her stories in the near future.

I'm also interested in how you know, so far, I've read you mostly men from that era, but that's not actually an accurate cross section of the people writing radical fiction at the turn of the twentieth century compared to literature in general. I would guess that women are overrepresented

in radical fiction compared to you know, regular literature. But I actually I could be wrong about that, because there is actually this thing where in some ways writing was one of the few jobs available to women, partly because you don't really have a boss in the same way. You know, it's not a really traditional way of having a job. Speaking of women who have books, I have books. This is me moving to pivots. I'm done with talking

about the story. I have a book called The Immortal Choir Holds Every Voice that came out this very note last month. That came out last month. I'll stop talking about it soon probably maybe, or maybe I'll keep talking about because I like it. It came out from Strangers and Entangledilderness, which is a collectively run press that I'm

part of. That press, Strangers and a Tangledilderness just put out a book, or was about to put out a book called or So and it is Lorenzo or Setti was an anarchist who died fighting Isis a few years back as part of the YPG in Rojeva, and this is his journals that was smuggled out by comrades and first published an Italian and the Italian publisher reached out to us and offered to let us publish it. And I'm really proud to have gotten to have a small

part in helping publish this book. And so if you look up this book or So Oh from Strangers in a Tangled Wilderness, so you can pre order it. And it's real good, it's real moving. It's not written as a memoir, it's written as journals. And so there's a lot of pieces written by his friends and family and other people involved in that fight to kind of help

contextualize it all. And you might like it too, And you also might like checking us out next week when I bring you yet another story on cool Zone Media book Club. I probably won't do that again, hie.