Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman

by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

  On April 2nd mother came to us. She had a cancer....

  Blanks in the diary now, vacant from April 13th to May 12th, when it says: “I think this is the date of my note to Mrs. E. E. Howard for $25.00 falling due on Nov. 1st, let me say, with Int. at 7%. Mrs. Cohen the same, with a year’s time.” The reason for this heavy financial undertaking was that Mrs. Palmer had to take away her furniture, and I had to get mine from Pasadena, just had to. There was the house with the boarders, a going concern. There were mother and Katharine — I had no better way to care for them, I must go on. So I had to borrow, had unhappily often to borrow during these hard years, with more hard years before I could pay.

  Blank in the diary to May 27th, then: “Signed contract with Mrs. Palmer for stoves and carpets. Have paid up to May 15th. $70.00 in full to date. Am to pay her the rest before Dec. 31st, 1892 or forfeit all.” Very few more entries, though one on Labor Day tells of reading a prize essay on Labor, and getting a gold medal for it. I always suspected that this essay and medal business was arranged for my benefit by Eugene Hough, a man influential in the Unions and one of my strong friends to this day.

  It was a hard year. Most of my boarders were invalids. There were six sick women in that house at one time, and they used to come and tell me their troubles, mostly in the middle of the night. Old Miss Sherman had what they called “old-fashioned consumption”; it was a slow affair. There was mother, steadily worse, Dora was unwell a large part of the time. Another nervous invalid was Mrs. Howe of Los Angeles, a warmly devoted friend, who came to live with me. She had a delicate genius in writing, and would have gone far if her health had been good. Mrs. Ober, a friend of Dora’s, was one more, a nurse of mother’s was another — I was the sixth.

  I did all the housework and nursed mother till I broke down; then I hired a cook and did the nursing till I broke down; then I hired a nurse and did the cooking till I broke down. Dr. Kellog Lane said I must send mother to a hospital. This I could not bear to do. “If you say definitely as a physician that I shall die, or go crazy,” I told her, “I’ll do as you say. But if I can possibly stand it I want to go on, I do not wish to have it said that I have failed in every relation in life.”

  She said that judging from what I had stood already, I could pull through. September 13th: “She concludes to do nothing for me at present. Says I had better break down honestly than be bolstered up and collapse more extensively later. A wise physician.”

  September 30th: “Mother’s last day downstairs — I think.”

  October 25th a better note: “Am feeling first rate these days — full of plans to write, sew, build, etc. The creative instinct rising and promising well for work when the strain is off.” Here’s a funny one — November 15th: “Mrs. Haydon, the cook, goes, praise the Lord! Mrs. Moore and small daughter appear in her stead — praise the Lord again! Might as well do it always.”

  Mr. Worcester, a Swedenborgian minister in San Francisco, came to see mother, December 9th: “Says I must have help — goes for a nurse.” And next day, with my usual thankfulness: “Mrs. Moore and daughter depart, praise the Lord again! She was either drugged or a lunatic. I have now secured a nurse for Monday, and am to do the housework for awhile.” The nurse, a Miss Bennet arrived: “I experience a great sense of relief and go out to ride on a cable car.”

  But alas! on the eleventh: “Miss Bennet proves totally inadequate, and has a sick headache, which induces her to sit in the kitchen all day.” She was followed by Mrs. Alban, who “Proves a delight — kind, willing, helpful, pleasant, we all like her.” She was later succeeded by her sister, Mrs. Wright, and I remarked, “These women are the first I have had who were wholly helpful.”

  The year runs out sadly. “It appears that I am sicker than I thought.” “I am very weak.” “Gave out in the morning. Sick — sicker.” And December 31st: “It has been a year of great and constantly increasing trouble. Poverty, illness, heartache, household irritation amounting to agony, care, anxiety, grief and shame for many many failures. My last love proves even as others” (That was Dora). “Out of it all I ought surely to learn final detachment from all personal concerns. The divorce is pending, undeclared, mother still lives. There is only to go on....”

  There were many kind friends. All my life I have been blessed with good friends, new and old, in this country and others, always some one was being kind to me. My Socialist comrades were most sympathetic. They even sent a committee of one who said, with careful search for the least offensive way of putting it, that they had heard that I was — indigent — and wished to offer assistance! I explained that I was no worse off than many another woman keeping boarders, but I was grateful for their sympathy and kindness. They presently arranged a “pay” lecture for me, $25.00, which was welcome.

  There were some interesting times, too. The P.C.W.P.A. had a convention, with speakers from afar, and among them was Helen Campbell. As “Helen C. Weeks” her writings in Our Young Folks had delighted me when I was six. We became the closest friends, she was one of my adopted “mothers.”

  Ina Coolbrith, the beloved poet of California, lived opposite to me. She introduced me to Joaquin Miller, who had a spectacular castle-cottage up in the hills back of Berkeley, and he came to see me. So did Edwin Markham, then teaching in an Oakland school, before “The Man with a Hoe” was born; and one Edmund Russell, an aesthete from New York, wearing “romeos” for shoes, and a belt studded with large carnelians, and leaning against a mantel-piece or reclining on the rug in preference to chairs. Hamlin Garland I met also, and with James Whitcomb Riley and others visited Joaquin in castle-ette. There was a trick shower in the garden, which he sprung on us, delighted to surprise and wet his visitors. A daughter of his, part Indian, was in service with Miss Coolbrith at the time.

  Meanwhile, Mr. Stetson had filed a divorce suit in Rhode Island, for desertion. This was more honest than my getting it, for I was the one to break off. The Boston Globe made a most unpleasant note of this, and the San Francisco Chronicle took it up, with interest.

  Then the Examiner, Hearst’s paper, sent a reporter to get an interview with me. Up to this time I had accepted reporters as men and women like the rest of us, governed by similar instincts of decency and kindness. So I saw him, told him the simple facts, that there was no “story,” simply a case of broken health and mutual understanding, and that I was doing my best to keep it from my mother who was dying upstairs — to save her worry; and would he please not spread it about. Foolish woman!

  The result was a full page in the Examiner, with interviews from various members of the P.C.W.P.A. on the topic “Should Literary Women Marry.” I imagine that the reporter was decent about it, but that those higher up would by no means relinquish their opportunity. If there was nothing in the case for them to make game of, they would soon make something. And they did. My name became a football for all the papers on the coast. The worst of it was some singularly discerning friend sent clippings to mother, so that her last days were further saddened by anxiety about my future....

  Harder than everything else to me was the utter loss of the friend with whom I had sincerely hoped to live continually. She certainly did love me, at first anyway, and had been most generously kind with money. My return was mainly in service, not only in making a home for her, but in furnishing material for her work. She was a clever writer, and later I learned that she was one of those literary vampires who fasten themselves on one author or another with ardent devotion, and for the time being write like them. The kindest thing I can say of her character is that she had had an abscess at the base of the brain, and perhaps it had affected her moral sense. I do not mean to describe her as “immoral” in its usual meaning; she was malevolent. She lied so freely as to contradict herself in the course of a conversation, apparently not knowing it. She drank — I saw her drunk at my table. She swore freely, at me as well as others. She lifted her hand to strike me in one of her tempers, but that was a small matter. What did matter was the subtle spreadin
g of slanders about me, which I cannot legally prove to have come from her, but which were of such a nature that only one so close could have asserted such knowledge. Also, I do know of similar mischief-making from her in regard to others. At any rate that solace ended not only in pain but in shame — that I should have been so gullible, so ignorant, as to love her dearly.

  So the New Year’s inscription for 1893 is a doleful one: May this year’s misery be less, and new strength through me flow. More power to see and to express the blessed truths I know. And a little less pain if you please! I can do more work if I suffer less.”

  By January 31st I record: “Have done fifteen pieces of saleable work this month — , three lectures, three poems, nine articles of one sort or another. Received $40.00 so far. Fair work for an over worked invalid.” On February 9th: “Unless I learn my desired virtues now, I never shall. Difficulties are nothing. The power to live rightly is outside of these difficulties.”

  Mr. Hearst’s Examiner was not done with me. Having made my name a by-word, they now wished to take advantage of its unpleasant prominence, and sent a reporter, one Mr. Todd, to interview me on my views on the Marriage Question. “I refuse on the ground of the Examiner’s reputation — will not write for the paper. He begs, he tries to drag me into conversation, he argues, he offers to pay me, he threatens covertly — I succeed in getting rid of him. Am exhausted by the contest however.”

  I remember his threat distinctly. He said, “I suppose you know the Examiner is a bad paper to get the ill-will of?” I told him I had already tasted it, that they might do as they pleased but they should never have another word from me. Thirteen times before I left the coast I had the pleasure of refusing them, and many times since, in more than one of Mr. Hearst’s enlarging list of publications. My refusal was not based on my own experience alone, but on the well-known character of the Hearst papers and methods.

  As an instance of those methods, this story: A poor Oakland woman had a drunken, vicious husband. She left him, and took in washing to support her little children. He came to the house, drunk, and pursued her with an ax. She hurried the children out of the house, but he caught her, and had her on the floor with ax uplifted, when she shot him — she had the pistol with her from sheer terror of his coming.

  Following her arrest, the San Francisco Call sent to one of my boarders, Mrs. Howe, who was a writer, to go to see the woman and get her story. Of course her lawyer had warned her not to say anything to any one, and Mrs. Howe contented herself with doing some small services for the prisoner. The Examiner — I think it was Winifred Black, was more successful. She told that poor, frightened, remorseful little woman that she was not a reporter, that she had come because her sister had once been in prison for the same offense; she put her arms about her and the unhappy prisoner cried on her shoulder and told her all about it. It made a good “story” — what else should a reporter care for?

  No life and work in California at that time can be fairly described without reference to the Southern Pacific. That great railroad and steamship owner held the state in absolute control by land and sea. It held merciless power in the legislature, in the press, in the courts, even in the churches through wealthy patronage. In the very women’s clubs it could not be criticized because some prominent member was sure to be wife to an official of the road.

  As to business, there was the famous “pink slip” scandal, the private rebate arrangements for freight rates. A man, once secretary-of-state, told me how he had offended the Southern Pacific by advocating some bill or some man they found objectionable, and in return they deliberately wrecked his business — he had a store of some sort — by granting large rebates to other dealers and none to him. A whole generation of young men grew up in California who had never seen freedom or honesty in public affairs under the conscienceless tyranny of this powerful Common Carrier. There was no competition.

  When a new lawyer of promise arose he was promptly retained by the S. P. If any paper attacked it, it was soon bought up, or ruined. Only the brave little San Francisco Star, Single Tax, dared to oppose it — as long as it endured. I was told of a convincing novel written to expose “The Mussel Slough Tragedy,” wherein the S. P., with bloodshed and death, had evicted stoutly resisting poor men from their land, which had proved especially desirable to the road, on some well-buttressed claim that it belonged to the Company. This book was promptly bought up and suppressed, and the author similarly disposed of, made editor of an S. P. publication.

  Oakland is the natural terminus for transcontinental traffic, but its shore is shallow and the ocean trade comes to San Francisco. The S. P. ran freight boats and ferries across the bay, charging passengers “two bits,” twenty-five cents, for the trip. To connect with these boats they needed right of way through the city of Oakland. The city government, struggling to get some return for this invaluable privilege, which involved the ruin of a long street, succeeded only in bargaining for free transit within the city limits. Which, being agreed to by the railroad, and the wording of the agreement carefully arranged by their lawyers, they then put up a sign in each car to this effect — how often did I read it!— “Whereas, we are forbidden to collect fares within the city limits, we are not, therefore, compelled to carry passengers free. All persons found on the train without tickets will be considered as trespassers, and treated as such.”

  The long piers which carried those trains to the boats were the only means of access to the ferries. To prevent competing lines the S. P. bought up, or otherwise secured the whole water-front of Oakland. An opposition line was started from Alameda, the neighboring town to the south, but that was purchased, with its connecting road in Oakland.

  While I lived in that city, the railroad had built a little connecting spur on a street where they had no right whatever, and the city council, I was told, went out in person and tore it up. There was repeated effort to start competing boats, and the S. P. at length built fences across the ends of streets where they reached the water. Citizens tore them down at night. The road built them up again next day. Finally a small bit of wharfage was found, still belonging to the city, and a boat line was started by a Mr. Davis, which carried people across for five cents.

  Then there was war. A big S. P. freight boat almost ran down one of these new ones — accidentally of course! — but terrifying to passengers. S. P. fares came down with a rush, to five, to two-and-a-half cents, and the wharves on the other side were noisy with touters trying to persuade people to buy tickets at that price. But the immense crowds that swarmed across the bay morning and night knew friend from foe, and rode on the new boats. Furthermore, they delightedly took the S.P. train in Oakland and rode free till they got off to take the rival boat.

  This could not be borne. First, they ran their trains at top speed through the town, without stopping at all, so that citizens could not get on. The city council instantly passed an ordinance forbidding more than a certain speed in city limits, and then they ran so slowly that business men missed their appointments. But still the little boats did a successful business, and the big ones didn’t. As a final manœuver the S. P. put gates on the cars, at the foot of the steps, and let no one on without tickets, thus flatly abrogating the agreement by which they bought the right of way. Final? No. They super-capped the climax by driving piles all around the water-front of the city, so that no boats could go in or out. The city government sent out a force and pulled up those piles, stacked them in their yards in the city — I saw heaps of them; but the S. P. merely drove in more. Not until the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fé broke into California was there any escape from this tyranny.

  To show the general attitude of the oppressed citizens, no better instance could be given than that of the Sympathetic Strike of 1894. This began in the town of Pullman, where the makers of Pullman cars struck in their own interests. Their quarrel was taken up by railroad workers all over the country, who refused to run trains having Pullmans on them. The railroad companies promptly put Pullmans on e
very train, and then accused the strikers of refusing to carry United States mail.

  Everywhere the strikers behaved in the most blameless manner, doing no mischief to property, merely seeing that no Pullman cars were moved. In California this meant absolute lack of everything from outside; we were as if on an island, utterly cut off, we had no letters for a fortnight or so. Yet so deep was the hatred of the people for the Southern Pacific that they sided with the strikers altogether.

  In Sacramento a great flourish was made, summoning the militia to start the trains. An eye-witness told me how the officers rode grandly on the engine and the men were sent ahead to clear the track of the immense crowd standing all across the way, men and women, girls in holiday dress; but when the men reached the crowd they promptly joined it, each taking a girl on his arm. No train moved.

  It really looked as if the strikers would win, but not so. In a little out-of-the-way country place a small local train, without a Pullman on it, was wrecked, and one or two workmen killed. Upon this the strikers were accused of murder. How likely it was that they, so near to victory, should imperil it all by this useless little wreck and injury to some of their own people!

  Several were arrested and were to be tried in a bunch. Be it remembered that all the best lawyers were carefully retained by the S. P., but such legal talent as the strikers could secure claimed that in an accusation of murder each man had a right to a separate trial. The judge gave the other side until next day to produce authorities to the contrary, which they apparently did; at any rate something convinced him, and the trial went on, collectively.

  The S. P. had a witness who told not only what he was expected to, but so much more that he was promptly remanded to his place of detention and as promptly escaped that night. The whole public was hotly on the side of the men accused, but no public can keep hot indefinitely, the law’s delays were invoked, the trial dragged along till people had about forgotten, and the poor men were convicted.