WOMAN AND FREEDOM IN WHITMAN 387 



and he would do "away with themes of war! away with war 

 itself! . . . And in its stead speed industry's campaigns," 

 and in the work to be done, "For every man to see to it that 

 he really do something, for every woman too." 



A writer has said, if ever any class on earth has had cause 

 to revolt, it is woman, be the causes of her limitations from 

 many factors, or what you please. In simplest terms, it may 

 be asked, what is to be gained by this revolution ? The answer 

 is Freedom. Freedom is the end which revolution and revolt 

 through truth have in view. It is a liberation from all the 

 chains which are holding back the human being from greater 

 expansions of mind and soul. By Freedom is meant a state 

 wherein all the shackles from preconceived ideas of the rights 

 and wrongs of a question, are cast aside; when the being 

 stands unhampered to view each question on its own merits, 

 to let each concept to which the human mind is open work 

 out through a sequence to its logical conclusion; where the 

 individual's action need not necessarily be one with the full 

 possibilities of the conceptional outgrowth, but where the in- 

 dividual may partake of equal actional with theoretical liberty 

 if so he or she desires. In Freedom each being must stand 

 alone, and the conduct of another cannot be prescribed by 

 you or by me. 



Freedom is also a state wherein we are surely not free to 

 give ourselves up to unbridled passions, license, and vices. 

 For once we have resigned our own leadership into their law- 

 less hands, we can call ourselves free no longer; but we be- 

 come enslaved men and women. Perhaps the man and woman 

 ruled by even the noblest themes, lose in their devotion to 

 any one absorbing idea something of the essence of liberty. 

 Any enslavement thus becomes incompatible with Freedom. 

 Freedom also does not mean restrictions which condemn 

 and kill the energies and activities from and to the higher 

 nature. To be free means a just use of all functions and all 

 powers leading to a fine and unfolding future of individuality 

 and race. In one sense perhaps we can never obtain perfect 

 freedom, but the freest man or woman is the one who main- 

 tains an equilibrium amidst the contending storms of desires. 



