Parlor Talk

[Chicago Record, September 11, 1893] Four leaders of religious thought were sitting in Dr. Barrow’s [Barrows’s] parlor–the Jain, George Condin [Candlin], the missionary who has passed sixteen years in China, Swami Vivekananda, the learned Brahman[4]...

Response to Welcome

[Editorial synthesis of four Chicago newspaper reports from: Herald, Inter Ocean, Tribune, and Record, ca. September 11, 1893] Sisters and Brothers of America,, It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the grand words of welcome given to us by...

Preface

To preserve the historical authenticity of these newspapers reports, their original spelling, grammar and punctuation have been retained. For the sake of clarity, Swami Vivekananda’s original words have been placed in block quotations and titles supplied by the...

Buddhistic India

There are two great races in India: one is called the Aryan; the other, the non-Aryan. It is the Aryan race that has the three castes; but the whole of the rest are dubbed with one name, Shudras — no caste. They are not Aryans at all. (Many people came from outside of India, and they found the Shudras [there], the aborigines of the country). However it may be, these vast masses of non-Aryan people and the mixed people among them, they gradually became civilised and they began to scheme for the same rights as the Aryans. They wanted to enter their schools and their colleges; they wanted to take the sacred thread of the Aryans; they wanted to perform the same ceremonies as the Aryans, and wanted to have equal rights in religion and politics like the Aryans.

The Women of India

A woman has the right of way with even a prince. When the studious Greeks visited Hindustan to learn of the Hindu, all doors were open to them, but when the Mohammedan with his sword and the Englishman with his bullets came their doors were closed. Such guests were not welcomed. As Vivekananda deliciously words it: “When the tiger comes we close our doors until he has passed by.”