Chapter 36

UNION HOUSE.

"We are weak!" said the Sticks, and men broke them; "We are weak!" said the Threads, and were torn; Till new thoughts came and they spoke them; Till the Fagot and the Rope were born.

For the Fagot men find is resistant, And they anchor on the Rope's taut length; Even grasshoppers combined, Are a force, the farmers find-- In union there is strength.

Ross Warden endured his grocery business; strove with it, toiled at it, concentrated his scientific mind on alien tasks of financial calculation and practical psychology, but he liked it no better. He had no interest in business, no desire to make money, no skill in salesmanship.

But there were five mouths at home; sweet affectionate feminine mouths no doubt, but requiring food. Also two in the kitchen, wider, and requiring more food. And there were five backs at home to be covered, to use the absurd metaphor--as if all one needed for clothing was a four foot patch. The amount and quality of the covering was an unceasing surprise to Ross, and he did not do justice to the fact that his womenfolk really saved a good deal by doing their own sewing.

In his heart he longed always to be free of the whole hated load of tradesmanship. Continually his thoughts went back to the hope of selling out the business and buying a ranch.

"I could make it keep us, anyhow," he would plan to himself; "and I could get at that guinea pig idea. Or maybe hens would do." He had a theory of his own, or a personal test of his own, rather, which he wished to apply to a well known theory. It would take some years to work it out, and a great many fine pigs, and be of no possible value financially. "I'll do it sometime," he always concluded; which was cold comfort.

His real grief at losing the companionship of the girl he loved, was made more bitter by a total lack of sympathy with her aims, even if she achieved them--in which he had no confidence. He had no power to change his course, and tried not to be unpleasant about it, but he had to express his feelings now and then.

"Are you coming back to me?" he wrote. "How con you bear to give so much pain to everyone who loves you? Is your wonderful salary worth more to you than being here with your mother--with me? How can you say you love me--and ruin both our lives like this? I cannot come to see you--I _would_ not come to see you--calling at the back door! Finding the girl I love in a cap and apron! Can you not see it is wrong, utterly wrong, all this mad escapade of yours? Suppose you do make a thousand dollars a year--I shall never touch your money--you know that. I cannot even offer you a home, except with my family, and I know how you feel about that; I do not blame you.

"But I am as stubborn as you are, dear girl; I will not live on my wife's money--you will not live in my mother's house--and we are drifting apart. It is not that I care less for you dear, or at all for anyone else, but this is slow death--that's all."

Mrs. Warden wrote now and then and expatiated on the sufferings of her son, and his failing strength under the unnatural strain, till Diantha grew to dread her letters more than any pain she knew. Fortunately they came seldom.

Her own family was much impressed by the thousand dollars, and found the occupation of housekeeper a long way more tolerable than that of house-maid, a distinction which made Diantha smile rather bitterly. Even her father wrote to her once, suggesting that if she chose to invest her salary according to his advice he could double it for her in a year, maybe treble it, in Belgian hares.

_"They'd_ double and treble fast enough!" she admitted to herself; but she wrote as pleasant a letter as she could, declining his proposition.

Her mother seemed stronger, and became more sympathetic as the months passed. Large affairs always appealed to her more than small ones, and she offered valuable suggestions as to the account keeping of the big house. They all assumed that she was permanently settled in this well paid position, and she made no confidences. But all summer long she planned and read and studied out her progressive schemes, and strengthened her hold among the working women.

Laundress after laundress she studied personally and tested professionally, finding a general level of mediocrity, till finally she hit upon a melancholy Dane--a big rawboned red-faced woman--whose husband had been a miller, but was hurt about the head so that he was no longer able to earn his living. The huge fellow was docile, quiet, and endlessly strong, but needed constant supervision.

"He'll do anything you tell him, Miss, and do it well; but then he'll sit and dream about it--I can't leave him at all. But he'll take the clothes if I give him a paper with directions, and come right back." Poor Mrs. Thorald wiped her eyes, and went on with her swift ironing.

Diantha offered her the position of laundress at Union House, with two rooms for their own, over the laundry. "There'll be work for him, too," she said. "We need a man there. He can do a deal of the heavier work--be porter you know. I can't offer him very much, but it will help some."

Mrs. Thorald accepted for both, and considered Diantha as a special providence.

There was to be cook, and two capable second maids. The work of the house must be done thoroughly well, Diantha determined; "and the food's got to be good--or the girls wont stay." After much consideration she selected one Julianna, a "person of color," for her kitchen: not the jovial and sloppy personage usually figuring in this character, but a tall, angular, and somewhat cynical woman, a misanthrope in fact, with a small son. For men she had no respect whatever, but conceded a grudging admiration to Mr. Thorald as "the usefullest biddablest male person" she had ever seen. She also extended special sympathy to Mrs. Thorald on account of her peculiar burden, and the Swedish woman had no antipathy to her color, and seemed to take a melancholy pleasure in Julianna's caustic speeches.

Diantha offered her the place, boy and all. "He can be 'bell boy' and help you in the kitchen, too. Can't you, Hector?" Hector rolled large adoring eyes at her, but said nothing. His mother accepted the proposition, but without enthusiasm. "I can't keep no eye on him, Miss, if I'm cookin' an less'n you keep your eye on him they's no work to be got out'n any kind o' boy."

"What is your last name, Julianna?" Diantha asked her.

"I suppose, as a matter o' fac' its de name of de last nigger I married," she replied. "Dere was several of 'em, all havin' different names, and to tell you de truf Mis' Bell, I got clean mixed amongst 'em. But Julianna's my name--world without end amen."

So Diantha had to waive her theories about the surnames of servants in this case.

"Did they all die?" she asked with polite sympathy.

"No'm, dey didn't none of 'em die--worse luck."

"I'm afraid you have seen much trouble, Julianna," she continued sympathetically; "They deserted you, I suppose?"

Julianna laid her long spoon upon the table and stood up with great gravity. "No'm," she said again, "dey didn't none of 'em desert me on no occasion. I divorced 'em."

Marital difficulties in bulk were beyond Diantha's comprehension, and she dropped the subject.

Union House opened in the autumn. The vanished pepper trees were dim with dust in Orchardina streets as the long rainless summer drew to a close; but the social atmosphere fairly sparkled with new interest. Those who had not been away chattered eagerly with those who had, and both with the incoming tide of winter visitors.

"That girl of Mrs. Porne's has started her housekeeping shop!"

"That 'Miss Bell' has got Mrs. Weatherstone fairly infatuated with her crazy schemes."

"Do you know that Bell girl has actually taken Union House? Going to make a Girl's Club of it!"

"Did you ever _hear_ of such a thing! Diantha Bell's really going to try to run her absurd undertaking right here in Orchardina!"

They did not know that the young captain of industry had deliberately chosen Orchardina as her starting point on account of the special conditions. The even climate was favorable to "going out by the day," or the delivery of meals, the number of wealthy residents gave opportunity for catering on a large scale; the crowding tourists and health seekers made a market for all manner of transient service and cooked food, and the constant lack of sufficient or capable servants forced the people into an unwilling consideration of any plan of domestic assistance.

In a year's deliberate effort Diantha had acquainted herself with the rank and file of the town's housemaids and day workers, and picked her assistants carefully. She had studied the local conditions thoroughly, and knew her ground. A big faded building that used to be "the Hotel' in Orchardina's infant days, standing, awkward and dingy on a site too valuable for a house lot and not yet saleable as a business block, was the working base.

A half year with Mrs. Weatherstone gave her $500 in cash, besides the $100 she had saved at Mrs. Porne's; and Mrs. Weatherstone's cheerfully offered backing gave her credit.

"I hate to let you," said Diantha, "I want to do it all myself."

"You are a painfully perfect person, Miss Bell," said her last employer, pleasantly, "but you have ceased to be my housekeeper and I hope you will continue to be my friend. As a friend I claim the privilege of being disagreeable. If you have a fault it is conceit. Immovable Colossal Conceit! And Obstinacy!"

"Is that all?" asked Diantha.

"It's all I've found--so far," gaily retorted Mrs. Weatherstone. "Don't you see, child, that you can't afford to wait? You have reasons for hastening, you know. I don't doubt you could, in a series of years, work up this business all stark alone. I have every confidence in those qualities I have mentioned! But what's the use? You'll need credit for groceries and furniture. I am profoundly interested in this business. I am more than willing to advance a little capital, or to ensure your credit. A man would have sense enough to take me up at once."

"I believe you are right," Diantha reluctantly agreed. "And you shan't lose by it!"

Her friends were acutely interested in her progress, and showed it in practical ways. The New Woman's Club furnished five families of patrons for the regular service of cooked food, which soon grew, with satisfaction, to a dozen or so, varying from time to time. The many families with invalids, and lonely invalids without families, were glad to avail themselves of the special delicacies furnished at Union House. Picnickers found it easier to buy Diantha's marvelous sandwiches than to spend golden morning hours in putting up inferior ones at home; and many who cooked for themselves, or kept servants, were glad to profit by this outside source on Sunday evenings and "days out."

There was opposition too; both the natural resistance of inertia and prejudice, and the active malignity of Mrs. Thaddler.

The Pornes were sympathetic and anxious.

"That place'll cost her all of $10,000 a year, with those twenty-five to feed, and they only pay $4.50 a week--I know that!" said Mr. Porne.

"It does look impossible," his wife agreed, "but such is my faith in Diantha Bell I'd back her against Rockefeller!"

Mrs. Weatherstone was not alarmed at all. "If she _should_ fail--which I don't for a moment expect--it wont ruin me," she told Isabel. "And if she succeeds, as I firmly believe she will, why, I'd be willing to risk almost anything to prove Mrs. Thaddler in the wrong."

Mrs. Thaddler was making herself rather disagreeable. She used what power she had to cry down the undertaking, and was so actively malevolent that her husband was moved to covert opposition. He never argued with his wife--she was easily ahead of him in that art, and, if it came to recriminations, had certain controvertible charges to make against him, which mode him angrily silent. He was convinced in a dim way that her ruthless domineering spirit, and the sheer malice she often showed, were more evil things than his own bad habits; and that even in their domestic relation her behavior really caused him more pain and discomfort than he caused her; but he could not convince her of it, naturally.

"That Diantha Bell is a fine girl," he said to himself. "A damn fine girl, and as straight as a string!"

There had crept out, through the quenchless leak of servants talk, a varicolored version of the incident of Mathew and the transom; and the town had grown so warm for that young gentleman that he had gone to Alaska suddenly, to cool off, as it were. His Grandmother, finding Mrs. Thaddler invincible with this new weapon, and what she had so long regarded as her home now visibly Mrs. Weatherstone's, had retired in regal dignity to her old Philadelphia establishment, where she upheld the standard of decorum against the weakening habits of a deteriorated world, for many years.

As Mr. Thaddler thought of this sweeping victory, he chuckled for the hundredth time. "She ought to make good, and she will. Something's got to be done about it," said he.

Diantha had never liked Mr. Thaddler; she did not like that kind of man in general, nor his manner toward her in particular. Moreover he was the husband of Mrs. Thaddler. She did not know that he was still the largest owner in the town's best grocery store, and when that store offered her special terms for her exclusive trade, she accepted the proposition thankfully.

She told Ross about it, as a matter well within his knowledge, if not his liking, and he was mildly interested. "I am much alarmed at this new venture," he wrote, "but you must get your experience. I wish I could save you. As to the groceries, those are wholesale rates, nearly; they'll make enough on it. Yours is a large order you see, and steady."

When she opened her "Business Men's Lunch" Mr. Thaddler had a still better opportunity. He had a reputation as a high flyer, and had really intended to sacrifice himself on the altar of friendship by patronizing and praising this "undertaking" at any cost to his palate; but no sacrifice was needed.

Diantha's group of day workers had their early breakfast and departed, taking each her neat lunch-pail,--they ate nothing of their employers;--and both kitchen and dining room would have stood idle till supper time. But the young manager knew she must work her plant for all it was worth, and speedily opened the dining room with the side entrance as a "Caffeteria," with the larger one as a sort of meeting place; papers and magazines on the tables.

From the counter you took what you liked, and seated yourself, and your friends, at one of the many small tables or in the flat-armed chairs in the big room, or on the broad piazza; and as this gave good food, cheapness, a chance for a comfortable seat and talk and a smoke, if one had time, it was largely patronized.

Mr. Thaddler, as an experienced _bon vivant,_ despised sandwiches. "Picnicky makeshifts" he called them,--"railroad rations"--"bread and leavings," and when he saw these piles on piles of sandwiches, listed only as "No. 1," "No. 2" "No. 3," and so on, his benevolent intention wavered. But he pulled himself together and took a plateful, assorted.

"Come on, Porne," he said, "we'll play it's a Sunday school picnic," and he drew himself a cup of coffee, finding hot milk, cream and sugar crystals at hand. "I never saw a cheap joint where you could fix it yourself, before," he said,--and suspiciously tasted the mixture.

"By jing! That's coffee!" he cried in surprise. "There's no scum on the milk, and the cream's cream!" Five cents! She won't get rich on this."

Then he applied himself to his "No. 1" sandwich, and his determined expression gave way to one of pleasure. "Why that's bread--real bread! I believe she made it herself!"

She did in truth,--she and Julianna with Hector as general assistant. The big oven was filled several times every morning: the fresh rolls disappeared at breakfast and supper, the fresh bread was packed in the lunch pails, and the stale bread was even now melting away in large bites behind the smiling mouths and mustaches of many men. Perfect bread, excellent butter, and "What's the filling I'd like to know?" More than one inquiring-minded patron split his sandwich to add sight to taste, but few could be sure of the flavorsome contents, fatless, gritless, smooth and even, covering the entire surface, the last mouthful as perfect as the first. Some were familiar, some new, all were delicious.

The six sandwiches were five cents, the cup of coffee five, and the little "drop cakes," sweet and spicy, were two for five. Every man spent fifteen cents, some of them more; and many took away small cakes in paper bags, if there were any left.

"I don't see how you can do it, and make a profit," urged Mr. Eltwood, making a pastorial call. "They are so good you know!"

Diantha smiled cheerfully. "That's because all your ideas are based on what we call 'domestic economy,' which is domestic waste. I buy in large quantities at wholesale rates, and my cook with her little helper, the two maids, and my own share of the work, of course, provides for the lot. Of course one has to know how."

"Whenever did you find--or did you create?--those heavenly sandwiches?" he asked.

"I have to thank my laundress for part of that success," she said. "She's a Dane, and it appears that the Danes are so fond of sandwiches that, in large establishments, they have a 'sandwich kitchen' to prepare them. It is quite a bit of work, but they are good and inexpensive. There is no limit to the variety."

As a matter of fact this lunch business paid well, and led to larger things.

The girl's methods were simple and so organized as to make one hand wash the other. Her house had some twenty-odd bedrooms, full accommodations for kitchen and laundry work on a large scale, big dining, dancing, and reception rooms, and broad shady piazzas on the sides. Its position on a corner near the business part of the little city, and at the foot of the hill crowned with so many millionaires and near millionaires as could get land there, offered many advantages, and every one was taken.

The main part of the undertaking was a House Worker's Union; a group of thirty girls, picked and trained. These, previously working out as servants, had received six dollars a week "and found." They now worked an agreed number of hours, were paid on a basis by the hour or day, and "found" themselves. Each had her own room, and the broad porches and ball room were theirs, except when engaged for dances and meetings of one sort and another.

It was a stirring year's work, hard but exciting, and the only difficulty which really worried Diantha was the same that worried the average housewife--the accounts.

"THE OUTER REEF!"

(A Picture by Paul Dougherty.)

Who dares paint daylight? The bright white light of flaming noon? No blur of shadow, mist or haze, Just the whole unobstructed blaze Of hot mid-June.

No screen of leafage; The keen clean green of summer sea; Dazzle of surf in mid-day light, The very sound of the surges' fight, Broad--open--free.

The earth all stillness, Noon hush on the pastures' height; Turf topped cliffs with faces bare, Bones of the earth unveiled to air, Heat--breakers--light.

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN~MADE WORLD

X.

LAW AND GOVERNMENT.

It is easy to assume that men are naturally the lawmakers and law-enforcers, under the plain historic fact that they have been such since the beginning of the patriarchate.

Back of law lies custom and tradition. Back of government lies the correlative activity of any organized group. What group-insects and group-animals evolve unconsciously and fulfill by their social instincts, we evolve consciously and fulfill by arbitrary systems called laws and governments. In this, as in all other fields of our action, we must discriminate between the humanness of the function in process of development, and the influence of the male or female upon it. Quite apart from what they may like or dislike as sexes, from their differing tastes and faculties, lies the much larger field of human progress, in which they equally participate.

On this plane the evolution of law and government proceeds somewhat as follows:--The early woman-centered group organized on maternal lines of common love and service. The early combinations of men were first a grouped predacity--organized hunting; then a grouped belligerency,--organized warfare.

By special development some minds are able to perceive the need of certain lines of conduct over others, and to make this clear to their fellows; whereby, gradually, our higher social nature establishes rules and precedents to which we personally agree to submit. The process of social development is one of progressive co-ordination.

From independent individual action for individual ends, up to interdependent social action for social ends we slowly move; the "devil" in the play being the old Ego, which has to be harmonized with the new social spirit. This social process, like all others, having been in masculine hands, we may find in it the same marks of one-sided Specialization so visible in our previous studies.

The coersive attitude is essentially male. In the ceaseless age-old struggle of sex combat he developed the desire to overcome, which is always stimulated by resistance; and in this later historic period of his supremacy, he further developed the habit of dominance and mastery. We may instance the contrast between the conduct of a man when "in love" and while courting; in which period he falls into the natural position of his sex towards the other--namely, that of a wooer; and his behavior when, with marriage, they enter the, artificial relation of the master male and servile female. His "instinct of dominance" does not assert itself during the earlier period, which was a million times longer than the latter; it only appears in the more modern and arbitrary relation.

Among other animals monogamous union is not accompanied by any such discordant and unnatural features. However recent as this habit is when considered biologically, it is as old as civilization when we consider it historically: quite old enough to be a serious force. Under its pressure we see the legal systems and forms of government slowly evolving, the general human growth always heavily perverted by the special masculine influence. First we find the mere force of custom governing us, the _mores_ of the ancient people. Then comes the gradual appearance of authority, from the purely natural leadership of the best hunter or fighter up through the unnatural mastery of the patriarch, owning and governing his wives, children, slaves and cattle, and making such rules and regulations as pleased him.

Our laws as we support them now are slow, wasteful, cumbrous systems, which require a special caste to interpret and another to enforce; wherein the average citizen knows nothing of the law, and cares only to evade it when he can, obey it when he must. In the household, that stunted, crippled rudiment of the matriarchate, where alone we can find what is left of the natural influence of woman, the laws and government, so far as she is responsible for them, are fairly simple, and bear visible relation to the common good, which relation is clearly and persistently taught.

In the larger household of city and state the educational part of the law is grievously neglected. It makes no allowance for ignorance. If a man breaks a law of which he never heard he is not excused therefore; the penalty rolls on just the same. Fancy a mother making solemn rules and regulations for her family, telling the children nothing about them, and then punishing them when they disobeyed the unknown laws!

The use of force is natural to the male; while as a human being he must needs legislate somewhat in the interests of the community, as a male being he sees no necessity for other enforcement than by penalty. To violently oppose, to fight, to trample to the earth, to triumph in loud bellowings of savage joy,--these are the primitive male instincts; and the perfectly natural social instinct which leads to peaceful persuasion, to education, to an easy harmony of action, are contemptuously ranked as "feminine," or as "philanthropic,"--which is almost as bad. "Men need stronger measures" they say proudly. Yes, but four-fifths of the world are women and children!

As a matter of fact the woman, the mother, is the first co-ordinator, legislator, administrator and executive. From the guarding and guidance of her cubs and kittens up to the longer, larger management of human youth, she is the first to consider group interests and co-relate them.

As a father the male grows to share in these original feminine functions, and with us, fatherhood having become socialized while motherhood has not, he does the best he can, alone, to do the world's mother-work in his father way.

In study of any long established human custom it is very difficult to see it clearly and dispassionately. Our minds are heavily loaded with precedent, with race-custom, with the iron weight called authority. These heavy forces reach their most perfect expression in the absolutely masculine field of warfare. The absolute authority; the brainless, voiceless obedience; the relentless penalty. Here we have male coercion at its height; law and government wholly arbitrary. The result is as might be expected, a fine machine of destruction. But destruction is not a human process--merely a male process of eliminating the unfit.

The female process is to select the fit; her elimination is negative and painless.

Greater than either is the human process, to _develop fitness._

Men are at present far more human than women. Alone upon their self-seized thrones they have carried as best they might the burdens of the state; and the history of law and government shows them as changing slowly but irresistably in the direction of social improvement.

The ancient kings were the joyous apotheosis of masculinity. Power and Pride were theirs; Limitless Display; Boundless Self-indulgence; Irresistable Authority. Slaves and courtiers bowed before them, subjects obeyed them, captive women filled their harems. But the day of the masculine monarchy is passing, and the day of the human democracy is coming in. In a Democracy Law and Government both change. Laws are no longer imposed on the people by one above them, but are evolved from the people themselves. How absurd that the people should not be educated in the laws they make; that the trailing remnants of blind submission should still becloud their minds and make them bow down patiently under the absurd pressure of outgrown tradition!

Democratic government is no longer an exercise of arbitrary authority from one above, but is an organization for public service of the people themselves--or will be when it is really attained.

In this change government ceases to be compulsion, and becomes agreement; law ceases to be authority and becomes co-ordination. When we learn the rules of whist or chess we do not obey them because we fear to be punished if we don't, but because we want to play the game. The rules of human conduct are for our own happiness and service--any child can see that. Every child will see it when laws are simplified, based on sociology, and taught in schools. A child of ten should be considered grossly uneducated who could not rewrite the main features of the laws of his country, state, and city; and those laws should be so simple in their principles that a child of ten could understand them.

Teacher: "What is a tax?"

Child: "A tax is the money we agree to pay to keep up our common advantages."

Teacher: "Why do we all pay taxes?"

Child: "Because the country belongs to all of us, and we must all pay our share to keep it up."

Teacher: "In what proportion do we pay taxes?"

Child: "In proportion to how much money we have." (_Sotto voce_: "Of course!")

Teacher: "What is it to evade taxes?"

Child: "It is treason." (_Sotto voce_: "And a dirty mean trick.")

In masculine administration of the laws we may follow the instinctive love of battle down through the custom of "trial by combat"--only recently outgrown, to our present method, where each contending party hires a champion to represent him, and these fight it out in a wordy war, with tricks and devices of complex ingenuity, enjoying this kind of struggle as they enjoy all other kinds.

It is the old masculine spirit of government as authority which is so slow in adapting itself to the democratic idea of government as service. That it should be a representative government they grasp, but representative of what? of the common will, they say; the will of the majority;--never thinking that it is the common good, the common welfare, that government should represent.

It is the inextricable masculinity in our idea of government which so revolts at the idea of women as voters. "To govern:" that means to boss, to control, to have authority; and that only, to most minds. They cannot bear to think of the woman as having control over even their own affairs; to control is masculine, they assume. Seeing only self-interest as a natural impulse, and the ruling powers of the state as a sort of umpire, an authority to preserve the rules of the game while men fight it out forever; they see in a democracy merely a wider range of self interest, and a wider, freer field to fight in.

The law dictates the rules, the government enforces them, but the main business of life, hitherto, has been esteemed as one long fierce struggle; each man seeking for himself. To deliberately legislate for the service of all the people, to use the government as the main engine of that service, is a new process, wholly human, and difficult of development under an androcentric culture.

Furthermore they put forth those naively androcentric protests,--women cannot fight, and in case their laws were resisted by men they could not enforce them,--_therefore_ they should not vote!

What they do not so plainly say, but very strongly think, is that women should not share the loot which to their minds is so large a part of politics.

Here we may trace clearly the social heredity of male government.

Fix clearly in your mind the first head-ship of man--the leader of the pack as it were--the Chief Hunter. Then the second head-ship, the Chief Fighter. Then the third head-ship, the Chief of the Family. Then the long line of Chiefs and Captains, Warlords and Landlords, Rulers and Kings.

The Hunter hunted for prey, and got it. The Fighter enriched himself with the spoils of the vanquished. The Patriarch lived on the labor of women and slaves. All down the ages, from frank piracy and robbery to the measured toll of tribute, ransom and indemnity, we see the same natural instinct of the hunter and fighter. In his hands the government is a thing to sap and wreck, to live on. It is his essential impulse to want something very much; to struggle and fight for it; to take all he can get.

Set against this the giving love that comes with motherhood; the endless service that comes of motherhood; the peaceful administration in the interest of the family that comes of motherhood. We prate much of the family as the unit of the state. If it is--why not run the state on that basis? Government by women, so far as it is influenced by their sex, would be influenced by motherhood; and that would mean care, nurture, provision, education. We have to go far down the scale for any instance of organized motherhood, but we do find it in the hymenoptera; in the overflowing industry, prosperity, peace and loving service of the ant-hill and bee-hive. These are the most highly socialized types of life, next to ours, and they are feminine types.

We as human beings have a far higher form of association, with further issues than mere wealth and propagation of the species. In this human process we should never forget that men are far more advanced than women, at present. Because of their humanness has come all the noble growth of civilization, in spite of their maleness.

As human beings both male and female stand alike useful and honorable, and should in our government be alike used and honored; but as creatures of sex, the female is fitter than the male for administration of constructive social interests. The change in governmental processes which marks our times is a change in principle. Two great movements convulse the world to-day, the woman's movement and the labor movement. Each regards the other as of less moment than itself. Both are parts of the same world-process.

We are entering upon a period of social consciousness. Whereas so far almost all of us have seen life only as individuals, and have regarded the growing strength and riches of the social body as merely so much the more to fatten on; now we are beginning to take an intelligent interest in our social nature, to understand it a little, and to begin to feel the vast increase of happiness and power that comes of real Human Life.

In this change of systems a government which consisted only of prohibition and commands; of tax collecting and making war; is rapidly giving way to a system which intelligently manages our common interests, which is a growing and improving method of universal service. Here the socialist is perfectly right in his vision of the economic welfare to be assured by the socialization of industry, though that is but part of the new development; and the individualist who opposes socialism, crying loudly for the advantage of "free competition" is but voicing the spirit of the predacious male.

So with the opposers to the suffrage of women. They represent, whether men or women, the male viewpoint. They see the woman only as a female, utterly absorbed in feminine functions, belittled and ignored as her long tutelage has made her; and they see the man as he sees himself, the sole master of human affairs for as long as we have historic record.

This, fortunately, is not long. We can now see back of the period of his supremacy, and are beginning to see beyond it. We are well under way already in a higher stage of social development, conscious, well-organized, wisely managed, in which the laws shall be simple and founded on constructive principles instead of being a set of ring-regulations within which people may fight as they will; and in which the government shall be recognized in its full use; not only the sternly dominant father, and the wisely servicable mother, but the real union of all people to sanely and economically manage their affairs.

COMMENT AND REVIEW

There is a fine article in the June Popular Science Monthly, by Dr. Thomas W. Salmon on "Two Preventable Causes of Insanity."

He shows how much has been done by the popular recognition of cause and effect in checking tuberculosis, malaria and yellow fever, and urges a similar awakening in regard to insanity. At the close of 1908 there were 30,456 patients in the public and private institutions for the insane in New York State, about one in 280 of the general population of the state, he says; and then gives the new admissions for that year as 5,301. Five thousand new lunatics a year is a good many.

Dr. Salmon then shows that of this number there were "664 cases of general paralysis (dependant on syphilis) and 638 cases of alcoholic psychoses (due to intemperance)," or _more than one-fourth of all first admissions due to these two preventable causes._ There is a further most interesting fact, that this general paralysis in men is nearly three times as great in cities as in the country, and in women, twice as great; while alcoholic psychosis in women is seven times as great in cities.

Most striking of all is Dr. Salmon's showing that "_42 per cent. of all male admissions from cities were for general paralysis and the alcoholic psychoses._" As he justly remarks, "Where are 'the nervous tension of the cities' and 'the mad rush of modern life,' of which we speak so glibly, compared with syphilis and drunkenness as the real dangers of city life?" But for these two causes the ratio of insanity would be greater in the country, where, as is well known, the largest percentage of women lunatics comes from the lonely farm house.

Further than this we are told that many other forms of lunacy are indirectly due to syphilis and alcoholism, through parental transmission.

Knowledge is power. Society is but just awakening to a conscious knowledge of itself, its pains and pleasures, and its powers. One man may not be strong enough to resist the influences which pull and push him into these large hells, but when society as a whole,--or even women as a half,--waken to a realization of all this needless suffering, this dreadful waste, then we can prevent it.

*

The gentlemen of France are distressed about the birthrate. It appears that the men of that country do not bear enough children to keep up the population as they desire. Therefore serious measures are proposed "to stimulate the birthrate." They are these:

Additional military service to be imposed on bachelors over twenty-nine.

Marriage to be made obligatory to gentlemen employed by the state, at the age of twenty-five, with supplementary salaries and pension allowances for more than three children.

The law requiring equal distribution of estates among children to be repealed. The dislike of Frenchmen to dividing their property is a frequent cause of restricted families, we are told.

We trust that the gentlemen of France, spurred and encouraged by these incentives, will now produce more children than they have hitherto.

The New York _Times_, of Friday, June 24, gives an editorial to this news from France,--and no wonder. But it is perfectly serious in its treatment, and offers no criticism of the measures proposed. The writer has apparently small know]edge of biology, for he expresses astonishment that the miserably poor "increase prodigiously" in Russia and elsewhere. "Who shall solve these mysteries or dogmatize upon them?" he says, and speculates further, in a vaguely awe-stricken manner, on the subject, quoting from the vigorous Mr. Roosevelt and the gloomy Dr. Koch.

Do any of our readers, belonging to the negligible side of this race problem see anything to smile at? Let us parallel it:

There is dismay in the poultry yard over a grave falling off in the supply of eggs. A convocation of roosters is called to discuss it, and to take measures to remedy the condition. They propose (a) To make all roosters over six months old do extra scratching for food. (b) To enforce matrimony--or its gallinaceous equivalent--on all roosters employed by the flock. (c) To alter the custom of dividing the worms equally among the chicks.

The simile is strained, we admit: try to apply it to some other case, as a shortage in the milk supply--considered by a convocation of bulls. That seems rather absurd too. Can not some one suggest a parallel which could be taken as seriously as the Times takes this effort on the part of Frenchmen?

*

People in general, peaceably minding their own business, do not give much thought to their subtler enemies. A burglar, creeping in through the window, we can see and scream at; but a Public Poisoner, a whole array of Public Poisoners, creeping through the Legislature, we do not notice.

In the interests of the common good we have our National Health League, working by means of the Owen Bill for a National Department of Health which shall safeguard the people from disease and contamination as the Bureau of Agriculture safeguards our cattle.

Against this measure, one of most needed social service, is rising an organized opposition called the "League for Medical Freedom." This association defends the free practice of healing by unorthodox methods, but its opposition to the Owen Bill is wholly ignorant, if not worse. The Owen Bill, in urging a National Department of Health, does not seek to regulate the practice of medicine. Its work will be to maintain pure food, pure drugs, pure streams, and to study human health and maintain it as assiduously as we now study the health of swine and steers.

This sudden opposition, using great sums of money to advertise in the newspapers, seems based on the big interests of the patent medicines and other profitable health destroyers and life takers.

Our women, within their capacity as mothers and guardians of the home, ought to inform themselves as to the work of the National Health League.

Write to the Committee of One Hundred, Drawer 45 New Haven, Conn.

*

How many of our readers know that superb magazine, _The Englishwoman?_*

As far as I have seen them it is by far the finest woman's publication in the world. A big, handsome, dignified monthly; 120 pages in large clear type, a joy to the eye; and paper, a joy to the hand; the magazine is three-quarters of an inch thick to _The Century's_ half inch, and weighs ten ounces to _The Century's_ 18. This is not only because there are no pictures, but because of that specially light weight paper, so much more used in England than with us.

Thus pleasing to the eye and to the hand, it gives to the mind a clear, strong, varied presentation of the affairs of the world to-day as they specially affect women. Excellent writers and plenty of them furnish the material; it is good reading straight through.

My special satisfaction in this monthly is in its breadth of view. The need of the ballot is strongly emphasized, and due record is kept of the progress of the equal suffrage movement; but far more ground than that is covered. Studies are given of the previous position of women, of her place in different countries and classes, of her connection with the other stirring questions of the day.

Reading this, we gather an increasing sense of the real world-issues of which the woman's movement is not only in itself an interesting part, but one in the solution of which is shown to be that of many others. People who shrink from "feminism" in its more intense and accentuated forms, will find here a more proportional treatment, enlightening and persuasive.

*"The Englishwoman." Published by Sidgwick & Jackson, 3 Adam St., Adelphi. London, W. C. England. Monthly, 1s. Yearly, 14s. 6d. post free.

*

_The Woman's Journal,_* so long our best exponent of the equal rights movement in America, is now the official organ of the National American Women suffrage association.

This is as it should be. The association needs an organ, and _The Woman's Journal_ has always needed and desired a wider support than the equal suffragists gave it.

*The Woman's Journal. Saturday weekly. $1.00 yearly, No. 585 Boylston St., Boston, Mass.

It is the earnest wish of _The Forerunner_ that every American "equal suffragist" take the _Woman's Journal,_ and so keep in touch with the movement. It is now but _one dollar a year,_ which, for such a weekly, is more than reasonable.

It is also the earnest wish of The Forerunner that every American interested in the woman's movement the world over, and its English status in particular, should take _The Englishwoman._ That costs fourteen shillings a year, and is worth it.

And who is to take _The Forerunner?_ Only those who like it and find it useful.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

Problem 1st. A woman of thirty, single and intending so to remain, owning a tiny cottage in the woods near a large city; exhausted by ten years' overwork and having spent her savings on doctor's bills, asks two questions:

(a) Why cannot she stay at home and enjoy it?

(b) Can one love a man too much? (There was a man, but he went away.)

To (a) the answer is: one cannot live at home, and earn one's living without practicing some domestic industry. Of these two obvious and common ones are:

Take in washing:--not strong enough.

Take in sewing?--How about that?

A large city ought to furnish sewing and mending enough to keep one woman who owns a cottage. Five dollars a week ought to do it, including carfare.

Then comes the more various tasks; to make some one thing excellently well, and sell it: taking orders: making a little business of one's own.

The age of domestic industry is really past; but a lone woman with no rent to pay ought to make good, unless too ill to work at all.

If there is any ground with the cottage she could raise some food perhaps.

Third possibility: take another woman to board: or a child, if competent to care for children.

As to the second question: Yes, one can; one often does. If by "loving" one means "wanting." Love, pure love, strong giving love, does not exhaust nor injure. One can love a lifetime, without return--if it's that kind. But to hopelessly wish for what one cannot have is an illness. If that is the case it is time for a decided change of heart.

The world is full of people to love and serve; and a brave rational attitude of living ought to cure and strengthen.

Sister--sit quiet in the door of the little cottage: say "I am here to serve; to work for the world. I am willing. My own life is desolate--well? So are the lives of many. That I must bear. There are many years before me to be lived through--bravely and lovingly. If I die--that's no hardship; if I live I will do the work I'm here for."

Then study out your case with dispassionate interest; _as if it were some one else's_; and do what is wise. When you are strong enough, if you are willing to do housework (a job always waiting) for six months, it should give you a clear $150.00, to live another six months without care, and to practice the art you like best. Plan _ahead;_ bear what you have now in the determined hope of what you like better in five years--ten years--for the rest of life.

And so enlarge your range of consciousness, thinking, talking, reading about big human interests, that your own trouble shrinks in proportion.

Problem 2d. "Several of my professors in the University have such a condescending attitude toward women that most of us girls find it very hard to do our best. In some classes, we are actually, as a sex, marked lower than the men of the class. We have found in every instance that the wives of these professors are of the lowest tabby-cat variety, gossipy, infantile, at times malicious.

_Q._ (a) Can you believe that these trained men would be as illogical as to judge us all by their wives?

_Q._ (b) Is there any way even to make a start to root out this idea that all women are cast from the same mold,"--Studiosa.

_Ans._ (a) "Trained" men are not necessarily logical men. Logic in some fields does not imply logic in all. No matter how logical or how much trained, most men are illogical about women. (As are most women also.)

_Ans._ (b) Yes. The way to start,--and finish--this idea that "all women are cast from the same mold" is to prove that they are not by being different. The likeness men see in women is the likeness of sex. Show them the difference in human personality.

Problem 3d. "It is almost impossible for married women to go on teaching. Just as I am at my best, my usefulness is nullified because I am married. Would you please outline a plan of organization among married women who wish to continue practicing their profession, thru which they may arouse other women, and also reach the authorities who have control over their work?"--_E. M. K._

_Ans._ The most suitable organization among married women, and single ones as well, whereby to "arouse other women and reach the authorities" is political organization. That question is easily answered--by securing equal suffrage.

Problem 4th. "Several of us girls wish to associate with our men friends as real comrades, paying our half of theatre tickets, suppers and the like, as we have as much money, or as little, as they. They are fine young men, decidedly worth while. Yet they make the most astonishingly stupid objections, as do most of the other girls. It is not 'polite' or 'customary,' it is a man's 'privilege,' etc., etc. Could you not give us suggestions, perhaps in story form, of how to win the young men, and other girls too, without being too sharp-angled, over to our side?"--_College Girl._

_Ans._ I knew of a good arrangement between a man and a woman on this basis. If he invited her, he paid for both. If she invited him, she paid for both. If both went on their several initiatives each paid for him or herself.

As to how to "win over" the most conservative of beings, young men and young women, one can only recommend the trump card in any hand,--a sweet and winning personality;--not "feminine influence," but personal influence. If one's company is much desired, one can dictate terms.

Further; don't be stubborn about it. Ultimate principles are one thing,--personal application are quite another. Vary your attitude according to the degree of intelligence and prejudice you have to deal with.

Problem 5th. "A person is condemned to die for a crime he did not commit. Should he as a good citizen submit peaceably to his own murder (legal) or fight for his life, killing jailors perhaps, till overpowered?"

_Ans._ "As a good citizen" he should submit. See Socrates.

"In answer to question under 'Personal Problems' in June Forerunner, 'Why don't people wake up and _live!_ World size?' Will submit:

_Ans._ (a) Laziness. If people knew that thirty minutes of a healthful regimen practiced daily would double the daily pleasure of living and add ten years to the span of life, nine out of ten would neglect it. And (b) thoughtlessness through faulty education; the primary function of mental culture being to teach people to think, analyze, and solve the problems of life, and cultivate the memory; but memory is too often given first place to the exclusion of the others."--_A. O. H._

This is an excellent answer. There are others.--C. P. G.

THE EDITOR'S PROBLEM

To pay its running expenses this little magazine must have about three thousand subscribers. It now has between eleven and twelve hundred.

We want, to make good measure, two thousand more. This is a bare minimum, providing no salary to the editor. If enough people care for the magazine to support it to that extent, the editor will do her work for nothing--and be glad of the chance! If enough people care for it to support her--she will be gladder.

Do you like the magazine, its spirit and purpose? Do you find genuine interest and amusement in the novel--the short story? Do the articles appeal to you? Do the sermons rouse thought and stir to action? Are the problems treated such as you care to study? Does the poetry have bones to it as well as feathers? Does it give you your dollar's worth in the year? And do you want another dollar's worth?

Most of the people who take it like it very much. We are going to print, a few at a time, some of the pleasant praises our readers send. They are so cordial that we are moved to ask all those who do enjoy this little monthly service of sermon and story, fun and fiction, poetry and prose,

First, To renew their subscriptions.

Second, Each to get one new subscriber. (Maybe more!)

Third, To make Christmas presents of subscriptions, or of bound volumes of the first year.

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Books by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Sent postpaid by

THE CHARLTON COMPANY 67 WALL STREET, NEW YORK

"Women and Economics" $1.50

Since John Stuart Mill's essay there has been no book dealing with the whole position of women to approach it in originality of conception and brilliancy of exposition.--_London Chronicle._

A remarkable book. A work on economics that has not a dull page--the work of a woman about women that has not a flippant word.--_Boston Transcript._

Will be widely read and discussed as the cleverest, fairest, most forcible presentation of the view of the rapidly increasing group who look with favor on the extension of industrial employment to women.--_Political Science Quarterly._

"Concerning Children" $1.25

WANTED:--A philanthropist, to give a copy to every English-speaking parent.--_The Times,_ New York.

Should be read by every mother in the land.--_The Press,_ New York.

Wholesomely disturbing book that deserves to be read for its own sake.--_Chicago Dial._

"In This Our World" (Poems) $1.25

There is a joyous superabundance of life, of strength, of health, in Mrs. Gilman's verse, which seems born of the glorious sunshine and rich gardens of California.--_Washington Times._

The poet of women and for women, a new and prophetic voice in the world. Montaigne would have rejoiced in her.--_Mexican Herald._

"The Yellow Wall Paper" $0.50

Worthy of a place beside some of the weird masterpieces of Hawthorne and Poe.--_Literature._

As a short story it stands among the most powerful produced in America.--_Chicago News._

"The Home" $1.00

Indeed, Mrs. Gilman has not intended her book so much as a treatise for scholars as a surgical operation on the popular mind.--_The Critic,_ New York.

It is safe to say that no more stimulating arraignment has ever before taken shape and that the argument of the book is noble, and, on the whole, convincing.--_Congregationalist,_ Boston.

"Human Work" $1.00

Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman has been writing a new book, entitled "Human Work." It is the best thing that Mrs. Gilman has done, and it is meant to focus all of her previous work, so to speak.--_Tribune,_ Chicago.

In her latest volume, "Human Work," Charlotte Perkins Gilman places herself among the foremost students and elucidators of the problem of social economics.--"San Francisco Star._

It is impossible to overestimate the value of the insistence on the social aspect of human affairs as Mrs. Gilman has outlined it.--_Public Opinion._

IN PREPARATION:

"What Diantha Did" (A Novel) $1.00

"The Man Made World": or, "Our Androcentric Culture" $1.00

Orders taken for Bound Vols. THE FORERUNNER, $1.25

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THE FORERUNNER CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

AS TO PURPOSE:

_What is The Forerunner?_ It is a monthly magazine, publishing stories short and serial, article and essay; drama, verse, satire and sermon; dialogue, fable and fantasy, comment and review. It is written entirely by Charlotte Perkins Gilman.

_What is it For?_ It is to stimulate thought: to arouse hope, courage and impatience; to offer practical suggestions and solutions, to voice the strong assurance of better living, here, now, in our own hands to make.

_What is it about?_ It is about people, principles, and the questions of every-day life; the personal and public problems of to-day. It gives a clear, consistent view of human life and how to live it.

_Is it a Woman's magazine?_ It will treat all three phases of our existence--male, female and human. It will discuss Man, in his true place in life; Woman, the Unknown Power; the Child, the most important citizen.

_Is it a Socialist Magazine?_ It is a magazine for humanity, and humanity is social. It holds that Socialism, the economic theory, is part of our gradual Socialization, and that the duty of conscious humanity is to promote Socialization.

_Why is it published?_ It is published to express ideas which need a special medium; and in the belief that there are enough persons interested in those ideas to justify the undertaking.

AS TO ADVERTISING:

We have long heard that "A pleased customer is the best advertiser." The Forerunner offers to its advertisers and readers the benefit of this authority. In its advertising department, under the above heading, will be described articles personally known and used. So far as individual experience and approval carry weight, and clear truthful description command attention, the advertising pages of The Forerunner will be useful to both dealer and buyer. If advertisers prefer to use their own statements The Forerunner will publish them if it believes them to be true.

AS TO CONTENTS:

The main feature of the first year is a new book on a new subject with a new name:--

_"Our Androcentric Culture."_ this is a study of the historic effect on normal human development of a too exclusively masculine civilization. It shows what man, the male, has done to the world: and what woman, the more human, may do to change it.

_"What Diantha Did."_ This is a serial novel. It shows the course of true love running very crookedly--as it so often does--among the obstructions and difficulties of the housekeeping problem--and solves that problem. (NOT by co-operation.)

Among the short articles will appear:

"Private Morality and Public Immorality." "The Beauty Women Have Lost" "Our Overworked Instincts." "The Nun in the Kitchen." "Genius: Domestic and Maternal." "A Small God and a Large Goddess." "Animals in Cities." "How We Waste Three-Fourths Of Our Money." "Prize Children" "Kitchen-Mindedness" "Parlor-Mindedness" "Nursery-Mindedness"

There will be short stories and other entertaining matter in each issue. The department of "Personal Problems" does not discuss etiquette, fashions or the removal of freckles. Foolish questions will not be answered, unless at peril of the asker.

AS TO VALUE:

If you take this magazine one year you will have:

One complete novel . . . By C. P. Gilman One new book . . . By C. P. Gilman Twelve short stories . . . By C. P. Gilman Twelve-and-more short articles . . . By C. P. Gilman Twelve-and-more new poems . . . By C. P. Gilman Twelve Short Sermons . . . By C. P. Gilman Besides "Comment and Review" . . . By C. P. Gilman "Personal Problems" . . . By C. P. Gilman And many other things . . . By C. P. Gilman

DON'T YOU THINK IT'S WORTH A DOLLAR?

THE FORERUNNER CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN'S MAGAZINE CHARLTON CO., 67 WALL ST., NEW YORK

_____ 19__

Please find enclosed $_____ as subscription to "The Forerunner" from _____ 19___ to _____ 19___

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THE FORERUNNER

A MONTHLY MAGAZINE

BY

CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN AUTHOR, OWNER & PUBLISHER

1.00 A YEAR .10 A COPY