The alter of the prostitutes by Gale, Linn A.E - 1926

Milan, IL: The Rail Splitter Press, 1926. Pamphlet. 31p., staplebound pamphlet, pages evenly toned, otherwise very good. Title refers to a Catholic church in Mexico frequented by sex workers ("altar" spelled correctly inside). Gale, a self-proclaimed "Lenin of the Americas," had founded "El Comunista de Mexico" while helping to organize the Mexican IWW and working with the American radical expat community south of the border. He appears to have been an idiosyncratic figure and something of a lone wolf; after his arrest in Mexico City and deportation to San Antonio he was reported by the police to have informed on his erstwhile activist colleagues. Later critics have seen his attitude toward IWW organizing in Mexico as paternalistic towards local workers. Here he presents an anti-Catholic manifesto listing numerous incidents of sexual abuse by priests. Undated, but the text mentions a notorious 1914 debate on whether "the Roman Catholic priesthood is a lecherous bunch of white slavers" as having happened 12 years earlier.