Explore "The Socialist and the Suffragist (the Forerunner)" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Said the Socialist to the Suffragist: / "My cause is greater than yours! / You only work for a Special Class, / We for the gain of the General Mass, / Which every good ensures!"
Said the Suffragist to the Socialist: / "You underrate my Cause! / While women remain a Subject Class, / You never can move the General Mass, / With your Economic Laws!"
Said the Socialist to the Suffragist: / "You misinterpret facts! / There is no room for doubt or schism / In Economic Determinism -- / It governs all our acts!"
Said the Suffragist to the Socialist: / "You men will always find / That this old world will never move / More swiftly in its ancient groove / While women stay behind!"
"A lifted world lifts women up," / The Socialist explained. / "You cannot lift the world at all / While half of it is kept so small," / The Suffragist maintained.
The world awoke, and tartly spoke: / "Your work is all the same: / Work together or work apart, / Work, each of you, with all your heart -- / Just get into the game! "