She looked at Mrs Wedge from Lancashire, and Mrs Wedge looked back at her with a kindling eye.
‘Because there’s so many of ’em now — and they hang together so well, and they keep on the safe side of the law, and they’ve got the brass.’
Miss Walters nodded. ‘Exactly,’ said she. ‘Now friends, I’ve got something to suggest to you, something very earnest. Mrs Shortham and I have been talking about it for days, — she has something to say first.’
‘I think it comes with as good grace from me as from anybody,’ that lady began quietly. ‘All of you know how absolutely happy I was with one of the best men God ever made. That shows I’m not prejudiced. And it can’t hurt his feelings, now. As to his “memory” — he put me up to most of this, and urged me to publish it — but I — I just couldn’t while he was alive.’
Most of them had known Hugh Shortham, a tall deep-chested jovial man, always one of the most ardent advocates of the enlargement of women. His big manliness, his efficiency and success, had always made him a tower of strength against those who still talk of ‘shorthaired women and long-haired men’ as the sole supporters of this cause.
What Mrs Shortham now read was a brief but terrible indictment of what the title called ‘The Human Error.’ It recounted the evil results of male rule, as affecting the health, beauty, intelligence, prosperity, progress and happiness of humanity, in such clear and terrible terms, with such an accumulating pile of injuries, that faces grew white and lips set in hard steely lines as they listened.
‘All this does not in the least militate against the beauty and use of true manhood in right relation to women, nor does it contradict the present superior development of men in all lines of social progress. It does, however, in some sort make out the case against man. There follows the natural corollary that we, the women of to-day, seeing these things, must with all speed possible set ourselves to remove this devastating error in relation, and to establish a free and conscious womanhood for the right service of the world.’
There was a hot silence, with little murmurs of horror at some of the charges she had made, and a stir of new determination. Not all of them, keen as they were for the ballot, deeply as they felt the unnecessary sorrows of women, had ever had the historic panorama of injustice and its deadly consequences so vividly set before them.
‘I knew it was bad enough,’ broke forth little Mrs Wedge, ‘but I never knew it was as bad as that. Look at the consequences.’
‘That’s exactly it, Mrs Wedge! It’s the consequences we are looking at. We are tired of these consequences. We want some new ones!’ and Miss Waitress looked around the room, from face to face.
‘I’m ready!’ said a pale thin woman with an arrow pin.
They were, every one of them. Then Miss Waitress began.
‘What I have to suggest, is a wider, deeper, longer, stronger strike.’
Mrs Wedge, her eyes fixed on the calm earnest face, drew in her breath with a big intake.
‘Even if we get the ballot in a year — the work is only begun. Men have had that weapon for a good while now, and they have not accomplished everything — even for themselves. And if we do not get it in a year — or five — or ten — are we to do nothing in all that time save repeat what we have done before? I know the ballot is the best weapon, but — there are others. There are enough of us to keep up our previous tactics as long as we hold it necessary. I say nothing whatever against it. But there are also enough of us to be doing other things too.
‘Here is my suggestion. We need a government within a government; an organization of women, growing and strengthening against the time when it may come forward in full equality with that of men; a training school for world politics. This may become a world-group, holding international meetings and influencing the largest issues. I speak here only of a definite, practical beginning in this country.
‘Let us form a committee, called, perhaps, “Advisory Committee on Special Measures,” or simpler still, we might call it “Extension Committee” — that tells nothing, and has no limitations.
‘The measures I propose are these: —
‘That we begin a series of business undertakings, plain ordinary, every day businesses — farms, market gardens, greenhouses, small fruits, preserves, confections, bakeries, eating-houses, boarding and lodging houses, hotels, milliners and dressmakers’ shops, laundries, schools, kindergartens, nurseries — any and every business which women can enter.
‘Yes, I know that women are in these things now, — but they are not united, not organized. This is a great spreading league of interconnected businesses, with the economic advantages of such large union.’
‘Like a trust,’ said Mrs Shortham. ‘A woman’s trust.’
‘Or a Co-operative Society — or a Friendly,’ breathed little Mrs Wedge, her cheeks flushing.
‘Yes, all this and more. This is no haphazard solitary struggle of isolated women, competing with men, this is a body of women that can grow to an unlimited extent, and be stronger and richer as it grows. But it can begin as small as you please, and without any noise whatever.
‘Now see here — you all know how women are sweated and exploited; how they overwork us and underpay us, and how they try to keep us out of trades and professions just as the Americans try to keep out Chinese labor — because they are afraid of being driven out of the market by a lower standard of living.
‘Very well. Suppose we take them on their own terms. Because we can live on nothing a week and find ourselves — therefore we can cut the ground out from under their feet!’
The bitter intensity of her tones made a little shiver run around the circle, but they all shared her feeling.
‘Don’t imagine I mean to take over the business of the world — by no means. But I mean to initiate a movement which means on the surface, in immediate results, only some women going into business — that’s no novelty! Underneath it means a great growing association with steady increase of power.’
‘To what end — as a war measure, I mean?’ Lady Horwich inquired.
‘To several ends. The most patent, perhaps, is to accumulate the sinews of war. The next is to become owners of halls to speak in, of printing and publishing offices, of paper mills perhaps, of more and more of the necessary machinery needed for our campaign. The third is to train more and more women in economic organization, in the simple daily practice of modern business methods, and to guarantee to more and more of them that foundation stone of all other progress, economic independence. The fourth is to establish in all these businesses as we take them up, right conditions — proper hours, proper wages, everything as it should be.’
‘Employing women, only?’
‘As far as possible, Mrs Wedge. And when men are needed, employing the right kind.’
There was a thoughtful silence.
‘It’s an ENORMOUS undertaking,’ murmured the Honorable Miss Erwood, a rather grim faced spinster of middle age. ‘How can you get ’em to do it?’
Miss Waitress met her cheerfully.
‘It is enormous, but natural. It does not require a million women to start at once you see; or any unusual undertaking. The advisory central committee will keep books and make plans. Each business, little or big, starts wherever it happens to be needed. The connection is not visible. That connection involves in the first place definite help and patronage in starting, or in increasing the custom of one already started; second, an advantage in buying — which will increase as the allied businesses increase; and then the paying to the central committee of a small annual fee. As the membership increases, all these advantages increase — in arithmetical progression.’
‘Is the patronage in your plan confined to our society? or to sympathizers?’ pursued Miss Erwood.
‘By no means. The very essence of the scheme is to meet general demands to prove the advantage of clean, honest efficiency.
‘Now, for instance—’ Miss Waitress turned over a few notes she held in a neat package—
‘here is — let us say — the necktie trade. Now neckties are not laborious to make — as a matter of fact women do make them to-day. Neckties are not difficult to sell. As a matter of fact women frequently sell them. Silk itself was first made use of by a woman, and the whole silk industry might be largely in their hands. Designing, spinning, weaving, dyeing, we might do it all. But in the mere matters of making and selling the present day necktie of mankind, there is absolutely nothing to prevent our stretching out a slow soft hand, and gathering in the business. We might begin in the usual spectacular “feminine” way. A dainty shop in a good street, some fine girls, level-headed ones, who are working for the cause, to sell neckties, or — here is an advertising suggestion — we might call it “The Widows’ Shop” and employ only widows. There are always enough of the poor things needing employment.
‘Anyhow we establish a trade in neckties, fine neckties, good taste, excellent materials, reliable workmanship. When it is sufficiently prosperous, it branches — both in town and in the provinces — little by little we could build up such a reputation that “Widow Shop Neckties” would have a definite market value the world over. Meanwhile we could have our own workrooms, regular show places — patrons could see the neckties made, short hours, good wages, low prices.’
She was a little breathless, but very eager. ‘Now I know you are asking how we are going to make all these things pay, for they must, if we are to succeed. You see, in ordinary business each one preys on the others. We propose to have an interconnected group that will help one another — that is where the profit comes. This was only a single instance, just one industry, but now I’ll outline a group. Suppose we have a bit of land in some part of the country that is good for small fruit raising, and we study and develop that industry to its best. For the product we open a special shop in town, or at first, perhaps getting patronage by circularizing among our present membership, but winning our market by the goodness of the product and the reasonable price. Then we have a clean, pretty, scientific preserving room, and every bit of the unsold fruit is promptly turned into jam or jelly or syrup, right in sight of the patrons. They can see it done — and take it home, “hot” if they wish to, or mark the jars and have them sent. That would be a legitimate beginning of a business that has practically no limits — and if it isn’t a woman’s business, I don’t know what is!
‘Now this could get a big backing of steady orders from boarding houses and hotels managed by women, and gradually more and more of these would be run by our own members. Then we could begin to effect a combination with Summer lodgings — think what missionary work it would be to establish a perfect chain of Summer boarding houses which should be as near perfect as is humanly possible, and all play into one another’s hands and into our small market garden local ventures.
‘On such a chain of hotels we could found a growing laundry business. In connection with the service required, we could open an Employment Agency; in connection with that a Training School for Modem Employees — not “slaveys,” to be “exploited” by the average household, but swift, accurate, efficient, self-respecting young women, unionized and working for our own patrons. That would lead to club-houses for these girls — and for other working girls; and step by step, as the circles widened, we should command a market for our own produce that would be a tremendous business asset.’
She paused, looking about her, eager and flushed. Mrs Shortham took up the tale in her calm, sweet voice.
‘You see how it opens,’ she said. ‘Beginning with simple practical local affairs — a little laundry here, a little bakeshop there; a fruit garden — honey, vegetables — what you like; with dressmakers and milliners and the rest. It carries certain definite advantages from the start; good conditions, wages, hours; and its range of possible growth is quite beyond our calculations. And it requires practically no capital. We have simply to plan, to create, to arrange, and the pledged patronage of say a thousand women of those now interested would mean backing enough to start any modest business.’
‘There are women among us who have money enough to make several beginnings,’ Lady Horwich suggested.
‘There’ll be no trouble about that — we have to be sure of the working plan, that’s all,’ Miss Erwood agreed.
‘There’s a-plenty of us workers that could put it through — with good will!’ Mrs Wedge confidently asserted. ‘We’re doing most of this work you speak of now, with cruel hours and a dog’s wages. This offers a job to a woman with everything better than she had before — you’ll have no trouble with the workers.’
‘But how about the funds? — there might be a great deal of money in time,’ suggested Mrs Doughton-Highbridge. ‘Who would handle it?’
‘There would have to be a financial committee of our very best — names we all know and trust; and then the whole thing should be kept open and above board, as far as possible.
‘There should be certain small return benefits — that would attract many; a steady increase in the business, and a “war chest” — the reserve power to meet emergencies.’
‘I don’t quite see how it would help us to get the ballot,’ one earnest young listener now remarked, and quiet Mrs Shortham answered out of a full heart.
‘Oh, my dear! Don’t you see? In the mere matter of funds and membership it will help. In the very practical question of public opinion it will help; success in a work of this sort carries conviction with it. It will help as an immense machine for propaganda — all the growing numbers of our employees and fellow-members, all these shops and their spreading patronage. It will help directly as soon as we can own some sort of hall to speak in, in all large towns, and our own publishing house and printing shop. And while we are waiting and working and fighting for the ballot, this would be improving life for more and more women all the time.’
‘And it would carry the proof that the good things we want done are practical and can be done — it would promote all good legislation,’ Miss Waitress added.
‘I see; it’s all a practical good thing from the start,’ said Miss Erwood, rather argumentatively. ‘To begin with, it’s just plain good work. Furnishes employment and improves conditions. And from that up, there is no top to it — it’s education and organization, widening good fellowship and increasing power — I’m for it definitely.’
‘It would be a world within a world — ready to come out full-grown a woman’s world, clean and kind and safe and serviceable,’ Lady Horwich murmured, as if to herself. ‘Ladies, I move that a committee be appointed forthwith, consisting of Mrs Shortham, Mrs Wedge and Miss Waitress, with power to consult as widely as they see fit, and to report further as to this proposition at our next meeting.’
The motion was promptly seconded, as promptly carried, and the women looked at one another with the light of a new hope in their eyes.
FULFILMENT
Two women rocked slowly in the large splint chairs on a breezy corner of the hotel piazza. One sat as if she grew there, as if a rocking-chair were her natural habitat, as if she passed her life occupying rocking-chairs, merely eating and sleeping in the necessary intervals between one sitting and the next; as if, without a rocking-chair, she lacked explanation, missing it as a sailor his ship, or a cowboy his horse.
The other looked comfortable enough, and rocked appreciatively, but her air and her garments suggested other seats: desk-chairs, parlor-car chairs, and no chairs at all — long erect standing, brisk continued walking. There was about her even a subtle suggestion of one running easily, and this in spite of pleasant relaxation, such as one sees in the lines of a sleeping hound.
Mrs Edgar Maxwell, she of the soul affinity to rocking-chairs, was daintily engaged with some bright fancy work, a graceful wildrose wreath on a large linen centerpiece. Her white fingers were dexterously busy, but her eyes were placid pools of contentment.
Her sister, Irma Russell, did nothing. Her vigorous supple hands were quiet, though carrying their clear suggestion of active power, but her eyes wer
e vividly alive.
They talked freely, with increasing intimacy, with a clear view of two long empty stretches of verandah, and neither of them thought that the closed slats of the long green-blinded window beside them concealed a conscienceless novelist. They did not know he was in the hotel, as indeed he intended no one should. He was only waiting over a day to meet a friend, and carefully avoiding the crowds of female admirers, toward whom decent courtesy and business principles compelled some politeness when unescapable.
The term ‘conscienceless’ is perhaps too severe to describe him; he had an artistic conscience, deep, broad, accurate, relentless, but refused to be bound by the standards of most people.
Mrs Maxwell held her work off from her approving eyes, and drew a happy little sigh of admiration. Her glance dwelt briefly on the green slopes and blue heights about them, then long and tenderly on her boy and girl, playing tennis with the other young folks in the near distance.
‘Oh, Irma!’ she said. ‘If only you were as happy as I am!’
‘How do you know I’m not. You haven’t seen me for twenty years, you know. Do I look unhappy?’
‘Oh, no! I think you look wonderfully well, and you have certainly done well out there.’
‘Out there’ was California. It seemed the end of the earth to Mrs Maxwell.
Irma smiled. ‘You are a dear girl — you always were, Elsie. It’s a treat to see you. We haven’t had a chance at a good talk for all this while — about half our lives. Pitch in now — tell me about your happiness.’
Elsie laid down her work for a moment and looked lovingly at her sister.
‘You always were — different,’ she said. ‘I remember just as well how we used to talk — just girls! And now we’re both forty and over — and here we are together again! But I’ve nothing to tell — that you don’t know.’
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 161
