The Forerunner, Volume 1 by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (page 15)

civilization. Progressive people are proud of the freedom and honor given their women, and our nation honestly believes itself the leader in this line. “American women are the freest in the world!” we say; and boast of it.

Since the agitation for women’s rights began, many concessions have been made to further improve their condition. Men, seeing the justice of certain demands, have granted in many states such privileges as admission to schools, colleges, universities, and special instruction for professions; followed by admission to the bar, the pulpit, and the practice of medicine. Married women, in many states, have now a right to their own earnings; and in a few, mothers have an equal right in the guardianship of their children.

We are proud and glad that our women are free to go unveiled, to travel alone, to choose their own husbands; we are proud and glad of every extension of justice already granted by men to women.

Now:–Have any of these concessions been granted because a majority of women asked for them? Was it advanced in opposition to any of them that “women did not want it?” Have as many women ever asked for these things as are now asking for the ballot? If it was desirable to grant these other rights and privileges without the demand of a majority, why is the demand of a majority required before this one is granted?

The child widows of India did not unitedly demand the abolition of the “suttee.”

The tortured girl children of China did not rise in overwhelming majority to demand free feet; yet surely no one would refuse to lift these burdens because only a minority of progressive women insisted on justice.

It is a sociological impossibility that a majority of an unorganized class should unite in concerted demand for a right, a duty, which they have never known.

The point to be decided is whether political equality is to the advantage of women and of the state–not whether either, as a body, is asking for it.

Now for the “society” theory. There is a venerable fiction to the effect that women make–and manage, “society.” No careful student of comparative history can hold this belief for a moment. Whatever the conditions of the age or place; industrial, financial, religious, political, educational; these conditions are in the hands of men; and these conditions dictate the “society” of that age or place.

“Society” in a constitutional monarchy is one thing; in a primitive despotism another; among millionaires a third; but women do not make the despotism, the monarchy, or the millions. They take social conditions as provided by men, precisely as they take all other conditions at their hands. They do not even modify an existing society to their own interests, being powerless to do so. The “double standard of morals,” ruling everywhere in “society,” proves this; as does the comparative helplessness of women to enjoy even social entertainments, without the constant attendance and invitation of men.

Even in its great function of exhibition leading to marriage, it is the girls who are trained and exhibited, under closest surveillance; while the men stroll in and out, to chose at will, under no surveillance whatever.

That women, otherwise powerful, may use “society” to further their ends, is as true as that men do; and in England, where women, through their titled and landed position, have always had more political power than here, “society” is a very useful vehicle for the activities of both sexes.

But, in the main, the opportunities of “society” to women, are merely opportunities to use their “feminine influence” in extra domestic lines–a very questionable advantage to the home and family, to motherhood, to women, or to the state.

In religion women have always filled and more than filled the place allowed them. Needless to say it was a low one. The power of the church, its whole management and emoluments, were always in the hands of men, save when the Lady Abbess held her partial sway; but the work of the church has always been helped by women–the men have preached and the women practised!

Charity, as a vocation, is directly in line with the mother instinct, and has always appealed to women. Since we have learned how injurious to true social development this mistaken kindness is, it might almost be classified as a morbid by-product of suppressed femininity!

In passing we may note that charity as a virtue is ranked highest among those nations and religions where women are held lowest. With the Moslems it is a universal law–and in the Moslem Paradise there are no women–save the Houries!

The playground of a man-fenced “society”; the work-ground of a man-taught church; and this “osmosis” of social nutrition, this leakage and seepage of values which should circulate normally, called charity; these are not a sufficient field for the activities of women.

As for those limitations of the “feminine mind” which render her unfit to consider the victuallage of a nation, or the justice of a tax on sugar; it hardly seems as if the charge need be taken seriously. Yet so able a woman as Mrs. Humphry Ward has recently advanced it in all earnestness.

In her view women are capable of handling municipal, but not state affairs. Since even this was once denied them; and since, in England, they have had municipal suffrage for some time; it would seem as if their abilities grew with use, as most abilities do; which is in truth the real answer.

Most women spend their whole lives, and have spent their whole lives for uncounted generations, in the persistent and exclusive contemplation of their own family affairs. They are near-sighted, or near-minded, rather; the trouble is not with the nature of their minds, but with the use of them.

If men as a class had been exclusively confined to the occupation of house-service since history began, they would be similarly unlikely to manifest an acute political intelligence.

We may agree with Tennyson that “Woman is not undeveloped man, but diverse;” that is _women_ are not undeveloped _men;_ but the feminine half of humanity is undeveloped human. They have exercised their feminine functions, but not their human-functions; at least not to their full extent.

Here appears a distinction which needs to be widely appreciated.

We are not merely male and female–all animals are that–our chief distinction is that of race, our humanness.

Male characteristics we share with all males, bird and beast; female characteristics we share with all females, similarly; but human characteristics belong to _genus homo_ alone; and are possessed by both sexes. A female horse is just as much a horse as a male of her species; a female human being is just as human as the male of her species–or ought to be!

In the special functions and relations of sex there is no contest, no possible rivalry or confusion; but in the general functions of humanity there is great misunderstanding.

Our trouble is that we have not recognized these human functions as such; but supposed them to be exclusively masculine; and, acting under that idea, strove to prevent women from an unnatural imitation of men.

Hence this minor theory of the limitations of the “female mind.”

The mind is pre-eminently human. That degree of brain development which distinguishes our species, is a human, not a sex characteristic.

There may be, has been, and still is, a vast difference in our treatment of the minds of the two sexes. We have given them a different education, different exercises, different conditions in all ways. But all these differences are external, and their effect disappears with them.

The “female mind” has proven its identical capacity with the “male mind,” _in so far as it has been given identical conditions._ It will take a long time, however, before conditions are so identical, for successive generations, as to give the “female mind” a fair chance.

In the meantime, considering its traditional, educational and associative drawbacks, the “female mind” has made a remarkably good showing.

The field of politics is an unfortunate one in which to urge this alleged limitation; because politics is one of the few fields in which some women have been reared and exercised under equal conditions with men.

We have had queens as long as we have had kings, perhaps longer; and history does not show the male mind, in kings, to have manifested a numerically proportionate superiority over the female mind, in queens. There have been more kings than queens, but have there been more good and great ones, in proportion?

Even one practical and efficient queen is proof enough that being a woman does not preclude political capacity. Since England has had such an able queen for so long, and that within Mrs. Humphry Ward’s personal memory, her position seems fatuous in the extreme.

It has been advanced that great queens owed their power to the association and advice of the noble and high-minded men who surrounded them; and, further, that the poor showing made by many kings, was due to the association and vice of the base and low-minded women who surrounded them.

This is a particularly pusillanimous claim in the first place; is not provable in the second place; and, if it were true, opens up a very pretty field of study in the third place. It would seem to prove, if it proves anything, that men are not fit to be trusted with political power on account of an alarming affinity for the worst of women; and, conversely, that women, as commanding the assistance of the best of men, are visibly the right rulers! Also it opens a pleasant sidelight on that oft-recommended tool–“feminine influence.”

We now come to our opening objection; that society and state, home, and family, are best served by the present division of interests: and its corollary, that if women enlarge that field of interest it would reduce their usefulness in their present sphere.

The corollary is easily removed. We are now on the broad ground of established facts; of history, recent, but still achieved.

Women have had equal political rights with men in several places, for considerable periods of time. In Wyoming, to come near home, they have enjoyed this status for more than a generation. Neither here nor in any other state or country where women vote, is there the faintest proof of injury to the home or family relation. In Wyoming, indeed, divorce has decreased, while gaining so fast in other places.

Political knowledge, political interest, does not take up more time and strength than any other form of mental activity; nor does it preclude a keen efficiency in other lines; and as for the actual time required to perform the average duties of citizenship–it is a contemptible bit of trickery in argument, if not mere ignorance and confusion of idea, to urge the occasional attendance on political meetings, or the annual or bi-annual dropping of a ballot, as any interference with the management of a house.

It is proven, by years on years of established experience, that women can enjoy full political equality and use their power, without in the least ceasing to be contented and efficient wives and mothers, cooks and housekeepers.

What really horrifies the popular mind at the thought of women in politics, is the picture of woman as a “practical politician;” giving her time to it as a business, and making money by it, in questionable, or unquestionable, ways; and, further, as a politician in office, as sheriff, alderman, senator, judge.

The popular mind becomes suffused with horror at the first idea, and scarcely less so at the second. It pictures blushing girlhood on the Bench; tender motherhood in the Senate; the housewife turned “ward-heeler;” and becomes quite sick in contemplation of these abominations.

No educated mind, practical mind, no mind able and willing to use its faculties, need be misled for a moment by these sophistries.

There is absolutely no evidence that women as a class will rush into “practical politics.” Where they have voted longest they do not manifest this dread result. Neither is there any proof that they will all desire to hold office; or that any considerable portion of them will; or that, if they did, they would get it.

We seem unconsciously to assume that when women begin to vote, men will stop; or that the women will outnumber the men; also that, outnumbering them, they will be completely united in their vote; and, still further, that so outnumbering and uniting, they will solidly vote for a ticket composed wholly of women candidates.

Does anyone seriously imagine this to be likely?

This may be stated with assurance; if ever we do see a clever, designing, flirtatious, man-twisting woman; or a pretty, charming, irresistable young girl, elected to office–it will not be by the votes of women!

Where women are elected to office, by the votes of both men and women, they are of suitable age and abilities, and do their work well. They have already greatly improved some of the conditions of local politics, and the legislation they advocate is of a beneficial character.

What is the true relation of women to the state?

It is precisely identical with that of men. Their forms of service may vary, but their duty, their interest, their responsibility, is the same.

Here are the people on earth, half of them women, all of them her children. It is her earth as much as his; the people are their people, the state their state; compounded of them all, in due relation.

As the father and mother, together; shelter, guard, teach and provide for their children in the home; so should all fathers and mothers, together; shelter, guard, teach and provide for their common children, the community.

The state is no mystery; no taboo place of masculine secrecy; it is simply us.

Democracy is but a half-grown child as yet, one of twins? Its boy-half is a struggling thing, with “the diseases of babyhood”; its girl-half has hardly begun to take notice.

As human creatures we have precisely the same duty and privilege, interest, and power in the state; sharing its protection, its advantages, and its services. As women we have a different relation.

Here indeed we will admit, and glory in, our “diversity.” The “eternal womanly” is a far more useful thing in the state than the “eternal manly.”

To be woman means to be mother. To be mother means to give love, defense, nourishment, care, instruction. Too long, far too long has motherhood neglected its real social duties, its duties to humanity at large. Even in her position of retarded industrial development, as the housekeeper and houseworker of the world, woman has a contribution of special value to the state.

As the loving mother, the patient teacher, the tender nurse, the wise provider and care-taker, she can serve the state, and the state needs her service.

WHAT DIANTHA DID

CHAPTER XII

LIKE A BANYAN TREE

The Earth-Plants spring up from beneath, The Air-Plants swing down from above,
But the Banyan trees grow
Both above and below,
And one makes a prosperous grove.

In the fleeting opportunities offered by the Caffeteria, and in longer moments, rather neatly planned for, with some remnants of an earlier ingenuity, Mr. Thaddler contrived to become acquainted with Mrs. Bell. Diantha never quite liked him, but he won her mother’s heart by frank praise of the girl and her ventures.

“I never saw a smarter woman in my life,” he said; “and no airs. I tell you, ma’am, if there was more like her this world would be an easier place to live in, and I can see she owes it all to you, ma’am.”

This the mother would never admit for a moment, but expatiated loyally on the scientific mind of Mr. Henderson Bell, still of Jopalez.

“I don’t see how he can bear to let her out of his sight,” said Mr. Thaddler.

“Of course he hated to let her go,” replied the lady. “We both did. But he is very proud of her now.”

“I guess there’s somebody else who’s proud of her, too,” he suggested. “Excuse me, ma’am, I don’t mean to intrude, but we know there must be a good reason for your daughter keeping all Orchardina at a distance. Why, she could have married six times over in her first year here!”

“She does not wish to give up her work,” Mrs. Bell explained.

“Of course not; and why should she? Nice, womanly business, I am sure. I hope nobody’d expect a girl who can keep house for a whole township to settle down to bossing one man and a hired girl.”

In course of time he got a pretty clear notion of how matters stood, and meditated upon it, seriously rolling his big cigar about between pursed lips. Mr. Thaddler was a good deal of a gossip, but this he kept to himself, and did what he could to enlarge the patronage of Union House.

The business grew. It held its own in spite of fluctuations, and after a certain point began to spread steadily. Mrs. Bell’s coming and Mr. Eltwood’s ardent championship, together with Mr. Thaddler’s, quieted the dangerous slanders which had imperilled the place at one time. They lingered, subterraneously, of course. People never forget slanders. A score of years after there were to be found in Orchardina folk who still whispered about dark allegations concerning Union House; and the papers had done some pretty serious damage; but the fame of good food, good service, cheapness and efficiency made steady headway.

In view of the increase and of the plans still working in her mind, Diantha made certain propositions to Mr. Porne, and also to Mrs. Porne, in regard to a new, specially built club-house for the girls.

“I have proved what they can do, with me to manage them, and want now to prove that they can do it themselves, with any matron competent to follow my directions. The house need not be so expensive; one big dining-room, with turn-up tables like those ironing-board seat-tables, you know–then they can dance there. Small reception room and office, hall, kitchen and laundry, and thirty bedrooms, forty by thirty, with an “ell” for the laundry, ought to do it, oughtn’t it?”

Mrs. Porne agreed to make plans, and did so most successfully, and Mr. Porne found small difficulty in persuading an investor to put up such a house, which visibly could be used as a boarding-house or small hotel, if it failed in its first purpose.

It was built of concrete, a plain simple structure, but fine in proportions and pleasantly colored.

Diantha kept her plans to herself, as usual, but they grew so fast that she felt a species of terror sometimes, lest the ice break somewhere.

“Steady, now!” she would say. “This is real business, just plain business. There’s no reason why I shouldn’t succeed as well as Fred Harvey. I will succeed. I am succeeding.”

She kept well, she worked hard, she was more than glad to have her mother with her; but she wanted something else, which seemed farther off than ever. Her lover’s picture hung on the wall of her bedroom, stood on her bureau, and (but this was a secret) a small one was carried in her bosom.

Rather a grim looking young woman, Diantha, with the cares of the world of house-keepers upon her proud young shoulders; with all the stirring hopes to be kept within bounds, all the skulking fears to be resisted, and the growing burden of a large affair to be carried steadily.

But when she woke, in the brilliant California mornings, she would lie still a few moments looking at the face on the wall and the face on the bureau; would draw the little picture out from under her pillow and kiss it, would say to herself for the thousandth time, “It is for him, too.”

She missed him, always.

The very vigor of her general attitude, the continued strength with which she met the days and carried them, made it all the more needful for her to have some one with whom she could forget every care, every purpose, every effort; some one who would put strong arms around her and call her “Little Girl.” His letters were both a comfort and a pain. He was loyal, kind, loving, but always that wall of disapproval. He loved her, he did not love her work.

She read them over and over, hunting anew for the tender phrases, the things which seemed most to feed and comfort her. She suffered not only from her loneliness, but from his; and most keenly from his sternly suppressed longing for freedom and the work that belonged to him.

“Why can’t he see,” she would say to herself, “that if this succeeds, he can do his work; that I can make it possible for him? And he won’t let me. He won’t take it from me. Why are men so proud? Is there anything so ignominious about a woman that it is disgraceful to let one help you? And why can’t he think at all about the others? It’s not just us, it’s all people. If this works, men will have easier times, as well as women. Everybody can do their real work better with this old primitive business once set right.”

And then it was always time to get up, or time to go to bed, or time to attend to some of the numberless details of her affairs.

She and her mother had an early lunch before the caffeteria opened, and were glad of the afternoon tea, often held in a retired corner of the broad piazza. She sat there one hot, dusty afternoon, alone and unusually tired. The asphalted street was glaring and noisy, the cross street deep in soft dust, for months unwet.

Failure had not discouraged her, but increasing success with all its stimulus and satisfaction called for more and more power. Her mind was busy foreseeing, arranging, providing for emergencies; and then the whole thing slipped away from her, she dropped her head upon her arm for a moment, on the edge of the tea table, and wished for Ross.

From down the street and up the street at this moment, two men were coming; both young, both tall, both good looking, both apparently approaching Union House. One of them was the nearer, and his foot soon sounded on the wooden step. The other stopped and looked in a shop window.

Diantha started up, came forward,–it was Mr. Eltwood. She had a vague sense of disappointment, but received him cordially. He stood there, his hat off, holding her hand for a long moment, and gazing at her with evident admiration. They turned and sat down in the shadow of the reed-curtained corner.

The man at the shop window turned, too, and went away.

Mr. Eltwood had been a warm friend and cordial supporter from the epoch of the Club-splitting speech. He had helped materially in the slow, up-hill days of the girl’s effort, with faith and kind words. He had met the mother’s coming with most friendly advances, and Mrs. Bell found herself much at home in his liberal little church.

Diantha had grown to like and trust him much.

“What’s this about the new house, Miss Bell? Your mother says I may know.”

“Why not?” she said. “You have followed this thing from the first. Sugar or lemon? You see I want to disentangle the undertakings, set them upon their own separate feet, and establish the practical working of each one.”

“I see,” he said, “and ‘day service’ is not ‘cooked food delivery.'”

“Nor yet ‘rooms for entertainment,’ she agreed. “We’ve got them all labelled, mother and I. There’s the ‘d. s.’ and ‘c. f. d.’ and ‘r. f. e.’ and the ‘p. p.’ That’s picnics and parties. And more coming.”

“What, more yet? You’ll kill yourself, Miss Bell. Don’t go too fast. You are doing a great work for humanity. Why not take a little more time?”

“I want to do it as quickly as I can, for reasons,” answered Diantha.

Mr. Eltwood looked at her with tender understanding. “I don’t want to intrude any further than you are willing to want me,” he said, “but sometimes I think that even you–strong as you are–would be better for some help.”

She did not contradict him. Her hands were in her lap, her eyes on the worn boards of the piazza floor. She did not see a man pass on the other side of the street, cast a searching glance across and walk quickly on again.

“If you were quite free to go on with your beautiful work,” said Mr. Eltwood slowly, “if you were offered heartiest appreciation, profound respect, as well as love, of course; would you object to marrying, Miss Bell?” asked in an even voice, as if it were a matter of metaphysical inquiry. Mrs. Porne had told him of her theory as to a lover in the home town, wishing to save him a long heart ache, but he was not sure of it, and he wanted to be.

Diantha glanced quickly at him, and felt the emotion under his quiet words. She withdrew her eyes, looking quite the other way.

“You are enough of a friend to know, Mr. Eltwood,” she said, “I rather thought you did know. I am engaged.”

“Thank you for telling me; some one is greatly to be congratulated,” he spoke sincerely, and talked quietly on about less personal matters, holding his tea untasted till it was cold.

“Do let me give you some that is hot,” she said at last, “and let me thank you from my heart for the help and strength and comfort you have been to me, Mr. Eltwood.”

“I’m very glad,” he said; and again, “I am very glad.” “You may count upon anything I can do for you, always,” he continued. “I am proud to be your friend.”

He held her hand once more for a moment, and went away with his head up and a firm step. To one who watched him go, he had almost a triumphant air, but it was not triumph, only the brave beginning of a hard fight and a long one.

Then came Mrs. Bell, returned from a shopping trip, and sank down in a wicker rocker, glad of the shade and a cup of tea. No, she didn’t want it iced. “Hot tea makes you cooler,” was her theory.

“You don’t look very tired,” said the girl. “Seems to me you get stronger all the time.”

“I do,” said her mother. “You don’t realize, you can’t realize, Diantha, what this means to me. Of course to you I am an old woman, a back number–one has to feel so about one’s mother. I did when I married, and my mother then was five years younger than I am now.”

“I don’t think you old, mother, not a bit of it. You ought to have twenty or thirty years of life before you, real life.”

“That’s just what I’m feeling,” said Mrs. Bell, “as if I’d just begun to live! This is so _different!_ There is a big, moving thing to work for. There is–why Diantha, you wouldn’t believe what a comfort it is to me to feel that my work here is–really–adding to the profits!”

Diantha laughed aloud.

“You dear old darling,” she said, “I should think it was! It is _making_ the profits.”

“And it grows so,” her mother went on. “Here’s this part so well assured that you’re setting up the new Union House! Are you _sure_ about Mrs. Jessup, dear?”

“As sure as I can be of any one till I’ve tried a long time. She has done all I’ve asked her to here, and done it well. Besides, I mean to keep a hand on it for a year or two yet–I can’t afford to have that fail.”

Mrs. Jessup was an imported aunt, belonging to one of the cleverest girls, and Diantha had had her in training for some weeks.

“Well, I guess she’s as good as any you’d be likely to get,” Mrs. Bell admitted, “and we mustn’t expect paragons. If this can’t be done by an average bunch of working women the world over, it can’t be done–that’s all!”

“It can be done,” said the girl, calmly. “It will be done. You see.”

“Mr. Thaddler says you could run any kind of a business you set your hand to,” her mother went on. “He has a profound respect for your abilities, Dina.”

“Seems to me you and Mr. Thaddler have a good deal to say to each other, motherkins. I believe you enjoy that caffeteria desk, and all the compliments you get.”

“I do,” said Mrs. Bell stoutly. “I do indeed! Why, I haven’t seen so many men, to speak to, since–why, never in my life! And they are very amusing–some of them. They like to come here–like it immensely. And I don’t wonder. I believe you’ll do well to enlarge.”

Then they plunged into a discussion of the winter’s plans. The day service department and its employment agency was to go on at the New Union House, with Mrs. Jessup as manager; the present establishment was to be run as a hotel and restaurant, and the depot for the cooked food delivery.

Mrs. Thorvald and her husband were installed by themselves in another new venture; a small laundry outside the town. This place employed several girls steadily, and the motor wagon found a new use between meals, in collecting and delivering laundry parcels.

“It simplifies it a lot–to get the washing out of the place and the girls off my mind,” said Diantha. “Now I mean to buckle down and learn the hotel business–thoroughly, and develop this cooked food delivery to perfection.”

“Modest young lady,” smiled her mother. “Where do you mean to stop–if ever?”

“I don’t mean to stop till I’m dead,” Diantha answered; “but I don’t mean to undertake any more trades, if that is what you mean. You know what I’m after–to get ‘housework’ on a business basis, that’s all; and prove, prove, PROVE what a good business it is. There’s the cleaning branch–that’s all started and going well in the day service. There’s the washing–that’s simple and easy. Laundry work’s no mystery. But the food part is a big thing. It’s an art, a science, a business, and a handicraft. I had the handicraft to start with; I’m learning the business; but I’ve got a lot to learn yet in the science and art of it.”

“Don’t do too much at once,” her mother urged. “You’ve got to cater to people as they are.”

“I know it,” the girl agreed. “They must be led, step by step–the natural method. It’s a big job, but not too big. Out of all the women who have done housework for so many ages, surely it’s not too much to expect one to have a special genius for it!”

Her mother gazed at her with loving admiration.

“That’s just what you have, Dina–a special genius for housework. I wish there were more of you!”

“There are plenty of me, mother dear, only they haven’t come out. As soon as I show ’em how to make the thing pay, you’ll find that we have a big percentage of this kind of ability. It’s all buried now in the occasional ‘perfect housekeeper.’

“But they won’t leave their husbands, Dina.”

“They don’t need to,” the girl answered cheerfully. “Some of them aren’t married yet; some of them have lost their husbands, and _some_ of them”–she said this a little bitterly–“have husbands who will be willing to let their wives grow.”

“Not many, I’m afraid,” said Mrs. Bell, also with some gloom.

Diantha lightened up again. “Anyhow, here you are, mother dear! And for this year I propose that you assume the financial management of the whole business at a salary of $1,000 ‘and found.’ How does that suit you?”

Mrs. Bell looked at her unbelievingly.

“You can’t afford it, Dina!”

“Oh, yes, I can–you know I can, because you’ve got the accounts. I’m going to make big money this year.”

“But you’ll need it. This hotel and restaurant business may not do well.”

“Now, mother, you _know_ we’re doing well. Look here!” And Diantha produced her note-book.

“Here’s the little laundry place; its fittings come to so much, wages so much, collection and delivery so much, supplies so much–and already enough patronage engaged to cover. It will be bigger in winter, a lot, with transients, and this hotel to fall back on; ought to clear at least a thousand a year. The service club don’t pay me anything, of course; that is for the girls’ benefit; but the food delivery is doing better than I dared hope.”

Mrs. Bell knew the figures better than Diantha, even, and they went over them carefully again. If the winter’s patronage held on to equal the summer’s–and the many transient residents ought to increase it–they would have an average of twenty families a week to provide for–one hundred persons.

The expenses were:

Food for 100 at $250 a week. Per capita. $600 —
per year $13,000

Labor–delivery man. $600
Head cook. $600
Two assistant cooks. $1,040
Three washers and packers. $1,560
Office girl. $520
—
Per year $4,320

Rent, kitchen, office, etc. $500
Rent of motor. $300
Rent of cases. $250
Gasolene and repairs. $630
—
Per year $1,680

Total. $19,000

“How do you make the gasolene and repairs as much as that?” asked Mrs. Bell.

“It’s margin, mother–makes it even money. It won’t be so much, probably.”

The income was simple and sufficient. They charged $5.00 a week per capita for three meals, table d’hote, delivered thrice daily. Frequent orders for extra meals really gave them more than they set down, but the hundred-person estimate amounted to $26,000 a year.

“Now, see,” said Diantha triumphantly; “subtract all that expense list (and it is a liberal one), and we have $7,000 left. I can buy the car and the cases this year and have $1,600 over! More; because if I do buy them I can leave off some of the interest, and the rent of kitchen and office comes to Union House! Then there’s all of the extra orders. It’s going to pay splendidly, mother! It clears $70 a year per person. Next year it will clear a lot more.”

It did not take long to make Mrs. Bell admit that if the business went on as it had been going Diantha would be able to pay her a salary of a thousand dollars, and have five hundred left–from the food business alone.

There remained the hotel, with large possibilities. The present simple furnishings were to be moved over to New Union House, and paid for by the girls in due time. With new paint, paper, and furniture, the old house would make a very comfortable place.

“Of course, it’s the restaurant mainly–these big kitchens and the central location are the main thing. The guests will be mostly tourists, I suppose.”

Diantha dwelt upon the prospect at some length; and even her cautious mother had to admit that unless there was some setback the year had a prospect of large success.

“How about all this new furnishing?” Mrs. Bell said suddenly. “How do you cover that? Take what you’ve got ahead now?”

“Yes; there’s plenty,” said Diantha. “You see, there is all Union House has made, and this summer’s profit on the cooked food–it’s plenty.”

“Then you can’t pay for the motor and cases as you planned,” her mother insisted.

“No, not unless the hotel and restaurant pays enough to make good. But I don’t _have_ to buy them the first year. If I don’t, there is $5,500 leeway.”

“Yes, you are safe enough; there’s over $4,000 in the bank now,” Mrs. Bell admitted. “But, child,” she said suddenly, “your father!”

“Yes, I’ve thought of father,” said the girl, “and I mean to ask him to come and live at the hotel. I think he’d like it. He could meet people and talk about his ideas, and I’m sure I’d like to have him.”

“They talked much and long about this, till the evening settled about them, till they had their quiet supper, and the girls came home to their noisy one; and late that evening, when all was still again, Diantha came to the dim piazza corner once more and sat there quite alone.

Full of hope, full of courage, sure of her progress–and aching with loneliness.

She sat with her head in her hands, and to her ears came suddenly the sound of a familiar step–a well-known voice–the hands and the lips of her lover.

“Diantha!” He held her close.

“Oh, Ross! Ross! Darling! Is it true? When did you come? Oh, I’m so glad! So _glad_ to see you!”

She was so glad that she had to cry a little on his shoulder, which he seemed to thoroughly enjoy.

“I’ve good news for you, little girl,” he said. “Good news at last! Listen, dear; don’t cry. There’s an end in sight. A man has bought out my shop. The incubus is off–I can _live_ now!”

He held his head up in a fine triumph, and she watched him adoringly.

“Did you–was it profitable?” she asked.

“It’s all exchange, and some cash to boot. Just think! You know what I’ve wanted so long–a ranch. A big one that would keep us all, and let me go on with my work. And, dear–I’ve got it! It’s a big fruit ranch, with its own water–think of that! And a vegetable garden, too, and small fruit, and everything. And, what’s better, it’s all in good running order, with a competent ranchman, and two Chinese who rent the vegetable part. And there are two houses on it–_two_. One for mother and the girls, and one for us!”

Diantha’s heart stirred suddenly.

“Where is it, dear?” she whispered.

He laughed joyfully. “It’s _here!”_ he said. “About eight miles or so out, up by the mountains; has a little canyon of its own–its own little stream and reservoir. Oh, my darling! My darling!”

They sat in happy silence in the perfumed night. The strong arms were around her, the big shoulder to lean on, the dear voice to call her “little girl.”

The year of separation vanished from their thoughts, and the long years of companionship opened bright and glorious before them.

“I came this afternoon,” he said at length, “but I saw another man coming. He got here first. I thought–“

“Ross! You didn’t! And you’ve left me to go without you all these hours!”

“He looked so confident when he went away that I was jealous,” Ross admitted, “furiously jealous. And then your mother was here, and then those cackling girls. I wanted you–alone.”

And then he had her, alone, for other quiet, happy moments. She was so glad of him. Her hold upon his hand, upon his coat, was tight.

“I don’t know how I’ve lived without you,” she said softly.

“Nor I,” said he. “I haven’t lived. It isn’t life–without you. Well, dearest, it needn’t be much longer. We closed the deal this afternoon. I came down here to see the place, and–incidentally–to see you!”

More silence.

“I shall turn over the store at once. It won’t take long to move and settle; there’s enough money over to do that. And the ranch pays, Diantha! It really _pays,_ and will carry us all. How long will it take you to get out of this?”

“Get out of–what?” she faltered.

“Why, the whole abominable business you’re so deep in here. Thank God, there’s no shadow of need for it any more!”

The girl’s face went white, but he could not see it. She would not believe him.

“Why, dear,” she said, “if your ranch is as near as that it would be perfectly easy for me to come in to the business–with a car. I can afford a car soon.”

“But I tell you there’s no need any more,” said he. “Don’t you understand? This is a paying fruit ranch, with land rented to advantage, and a competent manager right there running it. It’s simply changed owners. I’m the owner now! There’s two or three thousand a year to be made on it–has been made on it! There is a home for my people–a home for us! Oh, my beloved girl! My darling! My own sweetheart! Surely you won’t refuse me now!”

Diantha’s head swam dizzily.

“Ross,” she urged, “you don’t understand! I’ve built up a good business here–a real successful business. Mother is in it; father’s to come down; there is a big patronage; it grows. I can’t give it up!”

“Not for me? Not when I can offer you a home at last? Not when I show you that there is no longer any need of your earning money?” he said hotly.

“But, dear–dear!” she protested. “It isn’t for the money; it is the work I want to do–it is my work! You are so happy now that you can do your work–at last! This is mine!”

When he spoke again his voice was low and stern.

“Do you mean that you love–your work–better than you love me?”

“No! It isn’t that! That’s not fair!” cried the girl. “Do you love your work better than you love me? Of course not! You love both. So do I. Can’t you see? Why should I have to give up anything?”

“You do not have to,” he said patiently. “I cannot compel you to marry me. But now, when at last–after these awful years–I can really offer you a home–you refuse!”

“I have not refused,” she said slowly.

His voice lightened again.

“Ah, dearest! And you will not! You will marry me?”

“I will marry you, Ross!”

“And when? When, dearest?”

“As soon as you are ready.”

“But–can you drop this at once?”

“I shall not drop it.”

Her voice was low, very low, but clear and steady.

He rose to his feet with a muffled exclamation, and walked the length of the piazza and back.

“Do you realize that you are saying no to me, Diantha?”

“You are mistaken, dear. I have said that I will marry you whenever you choose. But it is you who are saying, ‘I will not marry a woman with a business.'”

“This is foolishness!” he said sharply. “No man–that is a man–would marry a woman and let her run a business.”

“You are mistaken,” she answered. “One of the finest men I ever knew has asked me to marry him–and keep on with my work!”

“Why didn’t you take him up?”

“Because I didn’t love him.” She stopped, a sob in her voice, and he caught her in his arms again.

It was late indeed when he went away, walking swiftly, with a black rebellion in his heart; and Diantha dragged herself to bed.

She was stunned, deadened, exhausted; torn with a desire to run after him and give up–give up anything to hold his love. But something, partly reason and partly pride, kept saying within her: “I have not refused him; he has refused me!”

OUR ANDROCENTRIC CULTURE; or, THE MAN-MADE WORLD

XII.

POLITICS AND WARFARE.

I go to my old dictionary, and find; “Politics, I. The science of government; that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a nation or state, the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity; the defence of its existence and rights against foreign control or conquest; the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its citizens in their rights; with the preservation and improvement of their morals. 2. The management of political parties; the advancement of candidates to office; in a bad sense, artful or dishonest management to secure the success of political measures or party schemes, political trickery.”

From present day experience we might add, 3. Politics, practical; The art of organizing and handling men in large numbers, manipulating votes, and, in especial, appropriating public wealth.

We can easily see that the “science of government” may be divided into “pure” and “applied” like other sciences, but that it is “a part of ethics” will be news to many minds.

Yet why not? Ethics is the science of conduct, and politics is merely one field of conduct; a very common one. Its connection with Warfare in this chapter is perfectly legitimate in view of the history of politics on the one hand, and the imperative modern issues which are to-day opposed to this established combination.

There are many to-day who hold that politics need not be at all connected with warfare, and others who hold that politics is warfare front start to finish.

In order to dissociate the two ideas completely let us give a paraphrase of the above definition, applying it to domestic management;–that part of ethics which has to do with the regulation and government of a family; the preservation of its safety, peace and prosperity; the defense of its existence and rights against any strangers’ interference or control; the augmentation of its strength and resources, and the protection of its members in their rights; with the preservation and improvement of their morals.

All this is simple enough, and in no way masculine; neither is it feminine, save in this; that the tendency to care for, defend and manage a group, is in its origin maternal.

In every human sense, however, politics has left its maternal base far in the background; and as a field of study and of action is as well adapted to men as to women. There is no reason whatever why men should not develop great ability in this department of ethics, and gradually learn how to preserve the safety, peace and prosperity of their nation; together with those other services as to resources, protection of citizens, and improvement of morals.

Men, as human beings, are capable of the noblest devotion and efficiency in these matters, and have often shown them; but their devotion and efficiency have been marred in this, as in so many other fields, by the constant obtrusion of an ultra-masculine tendency.

In warfare, _per se_, we find maleness in its absurdest extremes. Here is to be studied the whole gamut of basic masculinity, from the initial instinct of combat, through every form of glorious ostentation, with the loudest possible accompaniment of noise.

Primitive warfare had for its climax the possession of the primitive prize, the female. Without dogmatising on so remote a period, it may be suggested as a fair hypothesis that this was the very origin of our organized raids. We certainly find war before there was property in land, or any other property to tempt aggressors. Women, however, there were always, and when a specially androcentric tribe had reduced its supply of women by cruel treatment, or they were not born in sufficient numbers, owing to hard conditions, men must needs go farther afield after other women. Then, since the men of the other tribes naturally objected to losing their main labor supply and comfort, there was war.

Thus based on the sex impulse, it gave full range to the combative instinct, and further to that thirst for vocal exultation so exquisitely male. The proud bellowings of the conquering stag, as he trampled on his prostrate rival, found higher expression in the “triumphs” of old days, when the conquering warrior returned to his home, with victims chained to his chariot wheels, and braying trumpets.

When property became an appreciable factor in life, warfare took on a new significance. What was at first mere destruction, in the effort to defend or obtain some hunting ground or pasture; and, always, to secure the female; now coalesced with the acquisitive instinct, and the long black ages of predatory warfare closed in upon the world.

Where the earliest form exterminated, the later enslaved, and took tribute; and for century upon century the “gentleman adventurer,” i.e., the primitive male, greatly preferred to acquire wealth by the simple old process of taking it, to any form of productive industry.

We have been much misled as to warfare by our androcentric literature. With a history which recorded nothing else; a literature which praised and an art which exalted it; a religion which called its central power “the God of Battles”–never the God of Workshops, mind you!–with a whole complex social structure man-prejudiced from center to circumference, and giving highest praise and honor to the Soldier; it is still hard for its to see what warfare really is in human life.

Someday we shall have new histories written, histories of world progress, showing the slow uprising, the development, the interservice of the nations; showing the faint beautiful dawn of the larger spirit of world-consciousness, and all its benefitting growth.

We shall see people softening, learning, rising; see life lengthen with the possession of herds, and widen in rich prosperity with agriculture. Then industry, blossoming, fruiting, spreading wide; art, giving light and joy; the intellect developing with companionship and human intercourse; the whole spreading tree of social progress, the trunk of which is specialized industry, and the branches of which comprise every least and greatest line of human activity and enjoyment. This growing tree, springing up wherever conditions of peace and prosperity gave it a chance, we shall see continually hewed down to the very root by war.

To the later historian will appear throughout the ages, like some Hideous Fate, some Curse, some predetermined check, to drag down all our hope and joy and set life forever at its first steps over again, this Red Plague of War.

The instinct of combat, between males, worked advantageously so long as it did not injure the female or the young. It is a perfectly natural instinct, and therefore perfectly right, in its place; but its place is in a pre-patriarchal era. So long as the animal mother was free and competent to care for herself and her young; then it was an advantage to have “the best man win;” that is the best stag or lion; and to have the vanquished die, or live in sulky celibacy, was no disadvantage to any one but himself.

Humanity is on a stage above this plan. The best man in the social structure is not always the huskiest. When a fresh horde of ultra-male savages swarmed down upon a prosperous young civilization, killed off the more civilized males and appropriated the more civilized females; they did, no doubt, bring in a fresh physical impetus to the race; but they destroyed the civilization.

The reproduction of perfectly good savages is not the main business of humanity. Its business is to grow, socially; to develop, to improve; and warfare, at its best, retards human progress; at its worst, obliterates it.

Combat is not a social process at all; it is a physical process, a subsidiary sex process, purely masculine, intended to improve the species by the elimination of the unfit. Amusingly enough, or absurdly enough; when applied to society, it eliminates the fit, and leaves the unfit to perpetuate the race!

We require, to do our organized fighting, a picked lot of vigorous young males, the fittest we can find. The too old or too young; the sick, crippled, defective; are all left behind, to marry and be fathers; while the pick of the country, physically, is sent off to oppose the pick of another country, and kill–kill–kill!

Observe the result on the population! In the first place the balance is broken–there are not enough men to go around, at home; many women are left unmated. In primitive warfare, where women were promptly enslaved, or, at the best, polygamously married, this did not greatly matter to the population; but as civilization advances and monogamy obtains, whatever eugenic benefits may once have sprung from warfare are completely lost, and all its injuries remain.

In what we innocently call “civilized warfare” (we might as well speak of “civilized cannibalism!”), this steady elimination of the fit leaves an everlowering standard of parentage at home. It makes a widening margin of what we call “surplus women,” meaning more than enough to be monogamously married; and these women, not being economically independent, drag steadily upon the remaining men, postponing marriage, and increasing its burdens.

The birth rate is lowered in quantity by the lack of husbands, and lowered in quality both by the destruction of superior stock, and by the wide dissemination of those diseases which invariably accompany the wife-lessness of the segregated males who are told off to perform our military functions.

The external horrors and wastes of warfare we are all familiar with; A. It arrests industry and all progress. B. It destroys the fruits of industry and progress. C. It weakens, hurts and kills the combatants. D. It lowers the standard of the non-combatants. Even the conquering nation is heavily injured; the conquered sometimes exterminated, or at least absorbed by the victor.

This masculine selective process, when applied to nations, does not produce the same result as when applied to single opposing animals. When little Greece was overcome it did not prove that the victors were superior, nor promote human interests in any way; it injured them.

The “stern arbitrament of war” may prove which of two peoples is the better fighter, but ft does not prove it therefor the fittest to survive.

Beyond all these more or less obvious evils, comes a further result, not enough recognized; the psychic effects of military standard of thought and feeling.

Remember that an androcentric culture has always exempted its own essential activities from the restraints of ethics,–“All’s fair in love and war!” Deceit, trickery, lying, every kind of skulking underhand effort to get information; ceaseless endeavor to outwit and overcome “the enemy”; besides as cruelty and destruction; are characteristic of the military process; as well as the much praised virtues of courage, endurance and loyalty, personal and public.

Also classed as a virtue, and unquestionably such from the military point of view, is that prime factor in making and keeping an army, obedience.

See how the effect of this artificial maintenance of early mental attitudes acts on our later development. True human progress requires elements quite other than these. If successful warfare made one nation unquestioned master of the earth its social progress would not be promoted by that event. The rude hordes of Genghis Khan swarmed over Asia and into Europe, but remained rude hordes; conquest is not civilization, nor any part of it.

When the northern tribes-men overwhelmed the Roman culture they paralysed progress for a thousand years or so; set back the clock by that much. So long as all Europe was at war, so long the arts and sciences sat still, or struggled in hid corners to keep their light alive.

When warfare itself ceases, the physical, social and psychic results do not cease. Our whole culture is still hag-ridden by military ideals.

Peace congresses have begun to meet, peace societies write and talk, but the monuments to soldiers and sailors (naval sailors of course), still go up, and the tin soldier remains a popular toy. We do not see boxes of tin carpenters by any chance; tin farmers, weavers, shoemakers; we do not write our “boys books” about the real benefactors and servers of society; the adventurer and destroyer remains the idol of an Androcentric Culture.

In politics the military ideal, the military processes, are so predominant as to almost monopolise “that part of ethics.” The science of government, the plain wholesome business of managing a community for its own good; doing its work, advancing its prosperity, improving its morals–this is frankly understood and accepted as A Fight from start to finish. Marshall your forces and try to get in, this is the political campaign. When you are in, fight to stay in, and to keep the other fellow out. Fight for your own hand, like an animal; fight for your master like any hired bravo; fight always for some desired “victory”–and “to the victors belong the spoils.”

This is not by any means the true nature of politics. It is not even a fair picture of politics to-day; in which man, the human being, is doing noble work for humanity; but it is the effect of man, the male, on politics.

Life, to the “male mind” (we have heard enough of the “female mind” to use the analogue!) _is_ a fight, and his ancient military institutions and processes keep up the delusion.

As a matter of fact life is growth. Growth comes naturally, by multiplication of cells, and requires three factors to promote it; nourishment, use, rest. Combat is a minor incident of life; belonging to low levels, and not of a developing influence socially.

The science of politics, in a civilized community, should have by this time a fine accumulation of simplified knowledge for diffusion in public schools; a store of practical experience in how to promote social advancement most rapidly, a progressive economy and ease of administration, a simplicity in theory and visible benefit in practice, such as should make every child an eager and serviceable citizen.

What do we find, here in America, in the field of “politics?”

We find first a party system which is the technical arrangement to carry on a fight. It is perfectly conceivable that a flourishing democratic government be carried on _without any parties at all;_ public functionaries being elected on their merits, and each proposed measure judged on its merits; though this sounds impossible to the androcentric mind.

“There has never been a democracy without factions and parties!” is protested.

There has never been a democracy, so far–only an androcracy.

A group composed of males alone, naturally divides, opposes, fights; even a male church, under the most rigid rule, has its secret undercurrents of antagonism.

“It is the human heart!” is again protested. No, not essentially the human heart, but the male heart. This is so well recognized by men in general, that, to their minds, in this mingled field of politics and warfare, women have no place.

In “civilized warfare” they are, it is true, allowed to trail along and practice their feminine function of nursing; but this is no part of war proper, it is rather the beginning of the end of war. Some time it will strike our “funny spot,” these strenuous efforts to hurt and destroy, and these accompanying efforts to heal and save.

But in our politics there is not even provision for a nursing corps; women are absolutely excluded.

“They cannot play the game!” cries the practical politician. There is loud talk of the defilement, the “dirty pool” and its resultant darkening of fair reputations, the total unfitness of lovely woman to take part in “the rough and tumble of politics.”

In other words men have made a human institution into an ultra-masculine performance; and, quite rightly, feel that women could not take part in politics _as men do._ That it is not necessary to fulfill this human custom in so masculine a way does not occur to them. Few men can overlook the limitations of their sex and see the truth; that this business of taking care of our common affairs is not only equally open to women and men, but that women are distinctly needed in it.

Anyone will admit that a government wholly in the hands of women would be helped by the assistance of men; that a gynaecocracy must, of its own nature, be one sided. Yet it is hard to win reluctant admission of the opposite fact; that an androcracy must of its own nature be one sided also, and would be greatly improved by the participation of the other sex.

The inextricable confusion of politics and warfare is part of the stumbling block in the minds of men. As they see it, a nation is primarily a fighting organization; and its principal business is offensive and defensive warfare; therefore the ultimatum with which they oppose the demand for political equality–“women cannot fight, therefore they cannot vote.”

Fighting, when all is said, is to them the real business of life; not to be able to fight is to be quite out of the running; and ability to solve our growing mass of public problems; questions of health, of education, of morals, of economics; weighs naught against the ability to kill.

This naive assumption of supreme value in a process never of the first importance; and increasingly injurious as society progresses, would be laughable if it were not for its evil effects. It acts and reacts upon us to our hurt. Positively, we see the ill effects already touched on; the evils not only of active war; but of the spirit and methods of war; idealized, inculcated and practiced in other social processes. It tends to make each man-managed nation an actual or potential fighting organization, and to give us, instead of civilized peace, that “balance of power” which is like the counted time in the prize ring–only a rest between combats.

It leaves the weaker nations to be “conquered” and “annexed” just as they used to be; with tariffs instead of tribute. It forces upon each the burden of armament; upon many the dreaded conscription; and continually lowers the world’s resources in money and in life.

Similarly in politics, it adds to the legitimate expenses of governing the illegitimate expenses of fighting; and must needs have a “spoils system” by which to pay its mercenaries.

In carrying out the public policies the wheels of state are continually clogged by the “opposition;” always an opposition on one side or the other; and this slow wiggling uneven progress, through shorn victories and haggling concessions, is held to be the proper and only political method.

“Women do not understand politics,” we are told; “Women do not care for politics;” “Women are unfitted for politics.”

It is frankly inconceivable, from the androcentric view-point, that nations can live in peace together, and be friendly and serviceable as persons are. It is inconceivable also, that in the management of a nation, honesty, efficiency, wisdom, experience and love could work out good results without any element of combat.

The “ultimate resort” is still to arms. “The will of the majority” is only respected on account of the guns o£ the majority. We have but a partial civilization, heavily modified to sex–the male sex.

THE SOCIALIST AND THE SUFFRAGIST

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!”

COMMENT AND REVIEW

[We mean to carry lists of books useful to our readers. We wish to prove that it will pay publishers to advertise with us. If you order any book reviewed here, please send your order to THE FORERUNNER]

There is a book which ought to be held in continual prominence by every magazine in the world that appeals particularly to women. It contains a scientific theory of more importance to the world than any put forth since the theory of evolution, and of more importance to women than any ever produced.

It is new, original, wildly startling, intensely significant, and, in the world of ideas, revolutionary in the highest degree.

When this theory is generally accepted, and when the world’s ideas have been rearranged in accordance with it, we shall find ourselves looking at a new life–with new eyes.

All our social questions will require new reading, and will find new answers.

It furnishes a key to the whole “woman question,” which unlocks every long-barred door and ironbound chest; it cuts the ground from under the feet of the most ancient prejudice, and makes tradition seem but a current rumor of to-day.

This book was published in 1893.

When I read it I was so impressed with its colossal possibility that I went to the publishers and asked to see the reviews–expecting to find some recognition of a world-lifting truth.

I found nothing of the sort. The reviewers reviewed the book in general with respect, with varying insight and intelligence, and one or two dwelt fot a moment on this special theory; but not one recognized its measureless importance.

This is not remarkable. In proportion to the far-reaching value of a truth is the difficulty of popular recognition. With almost all of us the mind is constantly used upon immediate facts and their short-distance relations; a man may be an expert lumber-jack, for instance, or a successful lumber-dealer, yet utterly fail to grasp the importance of forest conservation.

Even those most interested in the woman’s movement of to-day were little impressed by this new view.

“What difference does it make?” they said. “We are dealing with conditions of to-day–not with questions of primitive biology!”

Nevertheless, when a great truth is born into the world’s mind, it does not die. This, though not widely hailed, has grown and spread and influenced our common thought, and minor books are springing up in its train–among them Thomas’s “Sex and Society,” and my own “Androcentric Culture.”

The author of the book, Professor Lester F. Ward, is our greatest Sociologist, and recognized in Europe far more than here–as is quite natural. He now occupies the chair of Sociology at Brown University, in Providence, R. I. His previous books have had wide influence–“Dynamic Sociology” and “Psychic Factors in Civilization”–as well as much current literature in scientific magazines.

The special theory here referred to is, in a word, this:

That the female sex is the present form of the original type of life, once capable in itself of the primary process of reproduction; while the male sex is a later addition, introduced as an assistant to the original organism, in the secondary process of fertilization.

Most biologists still deny this.

Most readers, not knowing whether it is so or not, will say, “Why is that important?”

It will take time and study to establish the facts; but only a little use of the mind is needed to establish the importance to men and women.

Our ideas are all based on the primal concept expressed in the Adam and Eve story–that he was made first, and that she was made to assist him. On this assumption rests all our social structure as it concerns the sexes.

Reverse this idea once and for all; see that woman is in reality the race-type, and the man the sex-type–and all our dark and tangled problems of unhappiness, sin and disease, as between men and women, are cleared at once. Much, very much, of our more general trouble is traceable tho same source.

You don’t see it? Never mind. Read the book; or at least read the great Fourteenth Chapter, which covers the ground.

The book is “PURE SOCIOLOGY,” by Lester F. Ward. Published by the MacMillan Co. Price, $4.00.

Make your library get it.

If you can afford to, buy it.

Get up classes of women to study it.

Read the whole if it interests you–it is a great Sociology; but every woman who knows how to read ought to read that Fourteenth Chapter.

*

While going to press the Pure Food Magazine is holding a great Pure Food Exhibition in this city.

At one of the meetings of the Congress of Domestic Science there was a discussion of the Servant Question. A paper was read by a “Mistress,” and one by a, “Servant.” The latter was as nice a girl as one need see; and her paper was intensely practical, full of good sense, well expressed–and short!

Here it is:

“I know I am not equal to the honor of appearing here to-day, and I should like to be able to express myself clearer and better if I only had the power to do so, but I have never spoken before in my life. I have earned my living ever since I was fourteen, both in a factory and as a maid, and I think that I get a better living when I am out at service. I have had good places and some bad ones; kind mistresses, and severe ones. I have pleased some, and others nothing I could do was right. At service we are sure of a good home and much better food and shelter than is the factory girl, but we have not the independence and freedom that is given them, but I do not see how it could be arranged otherwise. But if we could have a quiet spot, so when our work was finished we could have a room to call our own (not the kitchen, where the cook is still busy with the pots and pans), but a little space where our mothers and friends could come and see us, I am sure that we maids would not abuse that privilege. Also, if you ladies would kindly remember that our time off is our own, and would not say, “I do wish you would not go off to-day, as I need you, but it will be all right, as I will let you off all of to-morrow,” and then think that it will be just the same to us. Our time off should be a positive arrangement, as we make our plans for those hours, and to-morrow is not to-day with our friends waiting for us.

“We all hope for a home of our own, and we can only learn from those that we serve; and if only more interest and consideration were shown us, I am sure, we would all do much better work, as we all like to please and we do our best when we are happy and appreciated.

“Unequal wages are a source of discontent, but if we could be taught how to secure the value for our money, to spend with better judgment, even less money would go farther.

“Then, again, if our amusements could be arranged so that we could get something decent between nine and ten o’clock at night; but everything is half over, or shut, by that time, and we’ve nothing to do but walk the streets, sit in the park, drink soda water, or look at moving pictures, until you hate them all, and when Monday morning comes you’ve spent your money and had nothing. It’s a deadly life, and we all look forward to getting out of it soon. Never a minute to call one’s own, not often a room or bed to one’s self, at the beck and call of somebody night and day, and in many places not even trusted with the things to work with, if there are any.”

*

Would you like a tiny book of poetry–real poetry, made by one of our strong writers?

He makes not only the poems, but the book; prints it, binds it, sends it to you himself.

It is a dainty thing, five and a half by four inches; but it has in it both thought and feeling, and beauty of expression.

“A Ship of Souls” is the title, and the first stanza carries the main idea–touched and re-touched throughout.

“My soul is not one; ’tis a ship of souls, And I am the vessel in which they ride. Some handle the ropes and manage the sails, And one at the helm stands firm to guide. Some board me for pleasure, and some for gain, And some make journeys to distant goals, And my life is steered through the sun and rain, For I am not a soul, but a ship of souls.”

A Ship of Souls.–Being a group of poems written and printed by Harvey White. The Maverick Press; Woodstock, New York, 1910. 50c.

PERSONAL PROBLEMS

I.

_Question._–“An aged widow would like to live with her married daughter, but their dispositions are incompatible. The mother is very fond of the daughter, but the daughter finds it impossible to respond or feel affectionate, and is so irritated and critical because of the mother’s old-fashioned ways, etc., that continued close association becomes very unpleasant.

“Who is to blame, and what can the mother do to improve the situation?

“Mutual Wellwisher.”

_Answer._–There is no “blame” in the problem as stated. Incompatibility of disposition is not a crime. If, however, the daughter allows her irritation and critical attitude to result in actual discussion and expressed disapproval of her mother’s “old-fashioned ways,” then she is certainly to blame; whether her mother is a guest or a boarder, she is not her daughter’s pupil.

Again, if the mother allows herself to interfere with the daughter’s “ways,” she is to blame for that; her period of tutoring is past. Ex-parents should not presume on their unavoidable relationship to give instruction to ex-children.

The real answer is a long way back, being to this effect:

The aged widow, when a young woman, should have had such large practical interest in life, over and above her family, that she would not be reduced to the position of “living with a married daughter; or, if she did live with her, would have enough else to occupy her to keep her “old-fashioned ways” in the background. Further, if she had kept up with human progress in some business, her ways wouldn’t be so old-fashioned.

The Practical Answer to the Practical Question, “What can the mother do to improve the situation?” is not difficult. She can (a) alter her ways; (b) live somewhere else; (c) if neither of these is possible, she can put it clearly to the daughter, “as man to man,” that she _has_ to live with her, that she _cannot_ learn new ways, and that they must use mutual politeness in accommodating one an other as far as possible.

It is a very carefully worded problem, this. If the daughter is healthy and otherwise contented, she ought to furnish the patience, as doubtless the mother did in her time. But it may be that the mother always irritated the daughter, in her youth, and has never never learned better.

If I were the aged widow I would live somewhere else!

II

_Question._–A friend writes to ask–

“How about flies its the central kitchen?” (This being apropos of “The Kitchen and the Fly,” in the August number of this magazine.)

_Answer._–One kitchen, though large, is more easily protected than a hundred kitchens, though small. There will be less “garbage,” in proportion, and it can be better handled. The officers of such a kitchen will be of a higher grade than the present class of servants, and capable of maintaining a higher grade of cleanliness; as, for instance, in the Franco-American soup factory, where there is exquisite cleanliness and care.

Further, in such a kitchen there will be no laundry or other extraneous work done; no running in and out of children and others; nothing but the scientific preparation of food.

Also, as shown in the article, the flies will be reduced 99 per cent. by the reduction in the number of horses required to bring supplies and remove garbage and ashes. To the large kitchen, wholesale supplies could be brought in motor trucks–a further loss to the fly.

III

_Question._–“A certain husband has been in the habit for years of paying a dollar a month lodge dues, and other incidental expenses of lodge meetings. The wife has paid a dollar a year dues in a suffrage club, and a dollar and a half a year for subscription to the Woman’s Journal. The ‘late’ panic has shrunk the family income, and something must be cut off. The Wife will cut off the two small amounts mentioned. She will cut off anything else that is for her separate existence. Now, the question is, how may her feeling of virtue and self-sacrifice be changed to a realization of injustice?”

_Answer._–This is a very large question–how to change the ethical values of a woman’s life!

We gather by inference that the “certain husband” has not cut off his lodge dues–or anything else.

The best answer is: let the woman EARN HER OWN LIVING. That goes farthest in changing self-sacrifice to justice.

OUR BOUND VOLUME AS A CHRISTMAS PRESENT

The first year comprises fourteen issues–November, 1909, to December, 1910, inclusive.

In it is the Housekeeping novel–“What Diantha Did”–which will interest many, both men and women. It offers a very practical solution to the Servant Question.

In it is also the Book About Men–“The Man-Made World, or Our Androcentric Culture.”

There have been books and books about women–mostly, unpleasant. This is the first one about men, as such; men as distinguished from Human Beings–as women have always been distinguished from Human Beings.

You won’t wholly like the book–just consider whether it is true!

The novel separately, or the book separately, would also make good presents, but the date of their publication is not settled, while in the bound volume of the magazine you get them both for only 25c. more than one would cost.

This set, making a volume of some 420 pages, with its twelve short stories, its articles, fables, verse, and other matter, will make a very good gift–for some people. Ready early in December. $1.25.

TO THOSE SPECIALLY INTERESTED IN THIS MAGAZINE, OR SPECIALLY INTERESTED IN FIFTY DOLLARS

This is not a “Popular Magazine.” It does not try to be. It is a magazine which meets the needs of a comparatively few, but they like it immensely–as is shown by the extracts from their letters we are now publishing.

We want to reach, if possible, all the people who would like The Forerunner if they knew about it.

For the rest of this year we are making a special offer to anyone who will get us new subscribers; the regular commission of 25 per cent., and a rising premium which goes up to a total of 50 per cent. for a hundred new paid year’s subscriptions.

$50.00 for one hundred new subscribers!

For a girl in college who wants to help herself;

For a woman in a liberal church, or with a wide acquaintance among progressive thinkers;

For a Suffragist in touch with similar believers;

For any man or woman who can reach organizations of liberal-minded people;

For anybody who thinks they would like to earn $50.00 that way–it is a good offer.

Write for full terms, samples, etc.

IF YOU RENEW

The first year runs through December; fourteen copies.

Renew from January, 1911, and get the whole of next year.

IF YOU DISCONTINUE

So far one subscriber has discontinued.

She will get the magazine two months more.

If you must discontinue, please let us know.

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