I tried without prejudice to realize the new condition, but a house without a house-wife, without children, without servants, seemed altogether empty. Nellie reassured me as to the children, however.
“It’s no worse than when they went to school, John, not a bit. If you were here at about 9 A. M., you’d see the mothers taking a morning walk, or ride if it’s stormy, to the child-garden, and leaving the babies there, asleep mostly. There are seldom more than five or six real little ones at one time in a group like this.”
“Do mothers leave their nursing babies there?”
“Sometimes; it depends on the kind of work they do. Remember they only have to work two hours, and many mothers get ahead on their work and take a year off at baby time. Still, two hours’ work a day that one enjoys, does not hurt even a nursing mother.”
I found it extremely difficult from the first, to picture a world whose working day was but two hours long; or even the four hours they told me was generally given.
“What do people do with the rest of their time; working people, I mean?” I asked.
“The old ones usually rest a good deal, loaf, visit one another, play games, in some cases they travel. Others, who have the working habit ingrained, keep on in the afternoon; in their gardens often; almost all old people love gardening; and those who wish, have one now, you see. The city ones do an astonishing amount of reading, studying, going to lectures, and the theatres. They have a good time.”
“But I mean the low rowdy common people — don’t they merely loaf and get drunk?”
Nellie smiled at me good humoredly.
“Some of them did, for a while. But it became increasingly difficult to get drunk. You see, their health was better, with sweeter homes, better food and more pleasure; and except for the dipsomaniacs they improved in their tastes presently. Then their children all made a great advance, under the new educational methods; the women had an immense power as soon as they were independent; and between the children’s influence and the woman’s and the new opportunities, the worst men had to grow better. There was always more recuperative power in people than they were given credit for.”
“But surely there were thousands, hundreds of thousands, of hoboes and paupers; wretched, degenerate creatures.”
Nellie grew sober. “Yes, there were. One of our inherited handicaps was that great mass of wreckage left over from the foolishness and ignorance of the years behind us. But we dealt very thoroughly with them. As I told you before, hopeless degenerates were promptly and mercifully removed. A large class of perverts were in capacitated for parentage and placed where they could do no harm, and could still have some usefulness and some pleasure. Many proved curable, and were cured. And for the helpless residue; blind and crippled through no fault of their own, a remorseful society provides safety, comfort and care; with all the devices for occupation and enjoyment that our best minds could arrange. These are our remaining asylums; decreasing every year. We don’t make that kind of people any more.”
We talked as we strolled about, or sat on the stone benches under rose bush or grape vine. The beauty of the place grew on me irresistibly. Each separate family could do as they liked in their own yard, under some restriction from the management in regard to general comfort and beauty. I was always ready to cry out about interference with personal rights; but my sister reminded me that we were not allowed to “commit a nuisance” in the old days, only our range of objections had widened. A disagreeable noise is now prohibited, as much as a foul smell; and conspicuously ugly forms and colors, also.
“And who decides — who’s your dictator and censor?”
“Our best judges — we elect, recall and change them. But under their guidance we have developed some general sense of beauty. People would complain loudly now of what did not use to trouble them at all.”
Then I remembered that I had seen no row of wooden cows in the green meadows, no invitation to “meet me at the fountain,” no assailing finger to assure me that my credit was good, no gross cathartic reminders, nothing anywhere to mar the beauty of the landscape; but many a graceful gate, temple-like summer houses crowning the grassy hills, arbors, pergolas, cool seats by stone-rimmed fountains, signs everywhere of the love of beauty and the power to make it.
“I don’t see yet how you ever manage to pay for all this extra work everywhere. I suppose in a place like this it comes out of the profit made on food,” I suggested.
“No — the gardening expenses of these home clubs come out of the rent.”
“And what rent do they have to pay — approximately?”
“I can tell you exactly about this place, because it was opened by a sort of stock company of women, and I was in it for a while. The land cost $100.00 an acre then — $30,000.00. To get it in shape cost $10,000.00, to build thirty of these houses about $4,000.00 apiece — there was great saving in doing it all at one time, the guest-house, furnished, was only $50,000.00, it is very simple, you see; and the general plant and child-garden, and everything else, some $40,000.00 more. I know we raised a capital of $250,000.00, and used it all. The residents pay $600.00 a year for house-rent and $100.00 more for club privileges. That is $28,000.00. We take 4 per cent, and it leaves plenty for taxes and up-keep. Those who have children keep up the child-garden. The hotel makes enough to keep everything going easily, and the food and service departments pay handsomely. Why, if these people had kept on living in New York, it would have cost them altogether at least $8,000.00 a year. Here it just costs them about $2,000.00 — and just see what they get for it.”
I had an inborn distrust of my sister’s figures, and consulted Owen later; also Hallie, who had much detailed knowledge on the subject; and furthermore I did some reading.
There was no doubt about it. The method of living of which we used to be so proud, for which I still felt a deep longing, was abominably expensive. Much smaller amounts, wisely administered, produced better living, and for the life of me I could not discover the cackling herds of people I had been led to expect when such “Utopian schemes” used to be discussed in my youth.
From the broad, shady avenues of this quiet place we looked over green hedges or wire fences thick with honeysuckle and rose, into pleasant homelike gardens where families sat on broad piazzas, swung in hammocks, played tennis, ball, croquet, tether-ball and badminton, just as families used to.
Groups of young girls or young men — or both — strolled under the trees and disported themselves altogether as I remembered them to have done, and happy children frolicked about in the houses and gardens, all the more happily, it would appear, because they had their own place for part of the day.
We had seen the fathers come home in time for the noon meal. In the afternoon most of the parents seemed to think it the finest thing in the world to watch their children learning or playing together, in that amazing Garden of theirs, or to bring them home for more individual companionship. As a matter of fact, I had never seen, in any group of homes that I could recall, so much time given to children by so many parents — unless on a Sunday in the suburbs.
I was very silent on the way back, revolving these things in my mind. Point by point it seemed so vividly successful, so plainly advantageous, so undeniably enjoyed by those who lived there; and yet the old objections surged up continually.
The “noisy crowd all herding together to eat!” — I remembered Mr. Masson’s quiet dining-room — they all had dining-rooms, it appeared. The “dreadful separation of children from their parents!” I thought of all those parents watching with intelligent interest their children’s guarded play, or enjoying their companionship at home.
The “forced jumble with disagreeable neighbors!” I recalled those sheltered quiet grounds; each house with its trees and lawn, its garden and its outdoor games.
It was against all my habits, principles, convictions, theories, and sentiments; but there it was, and they seemed to like it. Also, Owen assured me, it paid.
Chapter 8
&n
bsp; AFTER all, it takes time for a great change in world-thought to strike in. That’s what Owen insisted on calling it. He maintained that the amazing up-rush of these thirty years was really due to the wholesale acceptance and application of the idea of evolution.
“I don’t know which to call more important — the new idea, or the new power to use it,” he said. “When we were young, practically all men of science accepted the evolutionary theory of life; and it was in general popular favor, though little understood. But the governing ideas of all our earlier time were so completely out of touch with life; so impossible of any useful application, that the connection between belief and behavior was rusted out of us. Between our detached religious ideas and our brutal ignorance of brain culture, we had made ourselves preternaturally inefficient.
“Then — you remember the talk there was about Mental Healing— ‘Power in Repose’— ‘The Human Machine’ — or was that a bit later? Anyway, people had begun to waken up to the fact that they could do things with their brains. At first they used them only to cure diseases, to maintain an artificial ‘peace of mind,’ and tricks like that. Then it suddenly burst upon us — two or three important books came along nearly at once, and hosts of articles — that we could use this wonderful mental power every day, to live with! That all these scientific facts and laws had an application to life — human life.”
I nodded appreciatively. I was getting quite fond of my brother-in-law. We were in a small, comfortable motor boat, gliding swiftly and noiselessly up the beautiful Hudson. Its blue cleanness was a joy. I could see fish — real fish — in the clear water when we were still.
The banks were one long succession of gardens, palaces, cottages and rich woodlands, charming to view.
“It’s the time that puzzles me more than thing,” I said, “even more than the money. How on earth so much could be done in so little time!”
“That’s because you conceive of it as being done in one place after another, instead of in every place at once,” Owen replied. “If one city, in one year, could end the smoke at once,” Owen replied. “If one city, in one year, could end the smoke nuisance, so could all the cities on earth, if they chose to. We chose to, all over the country, practically at once.”
“But you speak of evolution. Evolution is the slowest of slow processes. It took us thousands of dragging years to evolve the civilization of 1910, and you show me a 1940 that seems thousands of years beyond that.”
“Yes; but what you call Evolution’ was that of unaided nature. Social evolution is a distinct process. Below us, you see, all improvements had to be built into the stock — transmitted by heredity. The social organism is open to lateral transmission — what we used to call education. We never understood it. We thought it was to supply certain piles of information, mostly useless; or to develop certain qualities.”
“And what do you think it is now?” I asked.
“We know now that the social process is to constantly improve and develop society. This has a necessary corollary of improvement in individuals; but the thing that matters most is growth in the social spirit — and body.”
“You’re beyond me now, Owen.”
“Yes; don’t you notice that ever since you began to study our advance, what puzzles you most is not the visible details about you, but a changed spirit in people? Thirty years ago, if you showed a man that some one had dumped a ton of soot in his front yard he would have been furious, and had the man arrested and punished. If you showed him that numbers of men were dumping thousands of tons of soot all over his city every year, he would have neither felt nor acted. It’s the other way, now.”
“You speak as if man had really learned to ‘love his neighbor as himself,’” I said sarcastically.
“And why not? If you have a horse, on whose strength you absolutely depend to make a necessary journey, you take good care of that horse and grow fond of him. It dawned on us at last that life was not an individual affair; that other people were essential to our happiness — to our very existence. We are not what they used to call ‘altruistic’ in this. We do not think of ‘neighbors,’ ‘brothers,’ ‘others’ any more. It is all ‘ourself.’”
“I don’t follow you — sorry.”
Owen grinned at me amiably. “No matter, old chap, you can see results, and will have to take the reasons on trust. Now here’s this particular river with its natural beauties, and its unnatural defilements. We simply stopped defiling it — and one season’s rain did the rest.”
“Did the rains wash away the rail-roads?”
“Oh, no — they are there still. But the use of electric power has removed the worst evils. There is no smoke, dust, cinders, and a yearly saving of millions in forest fires on the side! Also very little noise. Come and see the way it works now.”
We ran in at Yonkers. I wouldn’t have known the old town. It was as beautiful as — Posilippo.”
“Where are the factories?” I asked.
“There — and there — and there.”
“Why, those are palaces l”
“Well? Why not? Why shouldn’t people work in palaces? It doesn’t cost any more to make a beautiful building than an ugly one. Remember, we are much richer, now — and have plenty of time, and the spirit of beauty is encouraged.”
I looked at the rows of quiet, stately buildings; wide windowed; garden-roofed.
“Electric power there too?” I suggested.
Owen nodded again. “Everywhere,” he said. “We store electricity all the time with wind-mills, water-mills, tide-mills, solar engines — even hand power.”
“What!”
“I mean it,” he said. “There are all kinds of storage batteries now. Huge ones for mills, little ones for houses; and there are ever so many people whose work does not give them bodily exercise, and who do not care much for games. So we have both hand and foot attachments; and a vigorous man, or woman — or child, for that matter, can work away for half an hour, and have the pleasant feeling that the power used will heat the house or run the motor.
“Is that why I don’t smell gasoline in the streets?”
“Yes. We use all those sloppy, smelly things in special places — and apply all the power by electric storage mostly. You saw the little batteries in our boat.”
Then he showed me the railroad. There were six tracks, clean and shiny — thick turf between them.
“The inside four are for the special trains — rapid transit and long distance freight. The outside two are open to anyone.”
We stopped long enough to see some trains go by; the express at an incredible speed, yet only buzzing softly; and the fast freight; cars seemingly of aluminum, like a string of silver beads.
“We use aluminum for almost everything. You know it was only a question of power — the stuff is endless,” Owen explained.
And all the time, on the outside tracks, which had a side track at every station, he told me, ran single coaches or short trains, both passenger and freight, at a comfortable speed.
“All kinds of regular short-distance traffic runs this way. It’s a great convenience. But the regular highroads are the best. Have you noticed?”
I had seen from the air-motor how broad and fine they looked, but told him I had made no special study of them.
“Come on — while we’re about it,” he said; and called a little car. We ran up the hills to Old Broadway, and along its shaded reaches for quite a distance. It was broad, indeed. The center track, smooth, firm, and dustless, was for swift traffic of any sort, and well used. As the freight wagons were beautiful to look at and clean, they were not excluded, and the perfect road was strong enough for any load. There were rows of trees on either side, showing a good growth, though young yet; then a narrower roadway for slower vehicles, on either side a second row of trees, the footpaths, and the outside trees.
“These are only about twenty-five years old. Don’t you think they are doing well?”
“They are a credit to the National Bureau o
f Highways and Arboriculture that I see you are going to tell me about.”
“You are getting wise,” Owen answered, with a smile. “Yes — that’s what does it. And it furnishes employment, I can tell you. In the early morning these roads are alive with caretakers. Of course the bulk of the work is done by running machines; but there is a lot of pruning and trimming and fighting with insects. Among our richest victories in that line is the extermination of the gipsy moth — brown tail — elm beetle and the rest.”
“How on earth did you do that?”
“Found the natural devourer — as we did with the scale pest. Also by raising birds instead of killing them; and by swift and thorough work in the proper season. We gave our minds to it, you see, at last.”
The outside path was a delightful one, wide, smooth, soft to the foot, agreeable in color.
“What do you make your sidewalk of?” I asked.
Owen tapped it with his foot. “It’s a kind of semi-flexible concrete — wears well, too. And we color it to suit ourselves, you see. There was no real reason why a path should be ugly to look at.”
Every now and then there were seats; also of concrete, beautifully shaped and too heavy to be easily moved. A narrow crack ran along the lowest curve.
“That keeps ’em dry,” said Owen.
Drinking fountains bubbled invitingly up from graceful standing basins, where birds drank and dipped in the overflow.
“Why, these are fruit trees,” I said suddenly, looking along the outside row.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 44
