The Greatest Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman. Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Allerton struck in here, “Not forgetting the methods of transportation, Mr. Robertson. There was one kind of old world folly which made great waste of labor and time; that was our constant desire to eat things out of season. There is now a truer sense of what is really good eating; no one wants to eat asparagus that is not of the best, and asparagus cut five or ten days cannot be really good. We do not carry things about unnecessarily; and the carrying we do is swift, easy and economical. For slow freight we use waterways wherever possible — you will be pleased to see the “all-water routes’ that thread the country now. And our roads — you haven’t seen our roads yet! We lead the world.”
“We used to be at the foot of the class as to roads, did we not?” I asked; and Mr. Pike swiftly answered:
“We did, indeed, sir. But that very need of good roads made easy to us the second step in abolishing poverty. Here was a great social need calling for labor; here were thousands of men calling for employment; and here were we keeping the supply from the demand by main strength — merely from those archaic ideas of ours.
“We had a mass of valuable data already collected, and now that the whole country teemed with new ideals of citizenship and statesmanship, it did not take very long to get the two together.”
“We furnished employment for all the women, too,” my sister added. “A Social Service Union was formed the country over; it was part of the new religion. Every town has one — men and women. The same spirit that used to give us crusaders and missionaries now gave plenty of enthusiastic workers.”
“I don’t see yet how you got up any enthusiasm about work,” said I.
“It was not work for oneself,” Nellie explained. “That is what used to make it so sordid; we used really to believe that we were working each for himself. This new idea was overwhelming in its simplicity — and truth; work is social service — social service is religion — that’s about it.”
“Not only so,” Dr. Harkness added, “it made a three-fold appeal; to the old, deep-seated religious sense; to the new, vivid in tellectual acceptance; and to the very wide-spread, wholesome appreciation of a clear advantage.
“When a thing was offered to the world that agreed with every social instinct, that appealed to common sense, that was established by the highest scientific authority, and that had the overwhelming sanction of religion — why the world took to it.”
“But it is surely not natural to people to work — much less to like to work!” I protested.
“There’s where the change comes in,” Mr. Pike eagerly explained. “We used to think that people hated work — nothing of the sort! What people hated was too much I work, which is death; work they were personally unfit for and therefore disliked, which is torture; work under improper conditions, which is disease; work held con temptible, looked down upoh by other people, which is a grievous social distress; and work so ill-paid that no human beings could really live by it.”
“Why Mr. Robertson, if you can throw any light on the now inconceivable folly of that time so utterly behind us, we shall be genuinely indebted to you. It was quite understood in your day that the whole world’s life, comfort, prosperity and progress depended upon the work done, was it not?”
“Why, of course; that was an economic platitude,” I answered.
“Then why were the workers punished for doing it?”
“Punished? What do you mean?”
“I mean just what I say. They were punished, just as we punish criminals — with confinement at hard labor. The great mass of the people were forced to labor for cruelly long hours at dull, distasteful occupations; is not that punishment?”
“Not at all,” I said hotly. “They were free at any time to leave an occupation they did not like.”
Leave it for what alternative?” To take up another,” said I, perceiving that this, after all, was not much of an escape.
“Yes, to take up another under the same heavy conditions, if there was any opening; or to starve — that was their freedom.”
“Well, what would you have?” I asked. “A man must work for his living surely.”
“Remember your economic platitude, Mr.
Robertson,” Dr. Harkness suggested. “The whole world’s life, comfort, prosperity and progress depends upon the work done, you know. It was not their living they were working for; it was the world’s.”
“That is very pretty as a sentiment,” I was beginning; but his twinkling eye reminded that an economic platitude is not precisely sentimental.
“That’s where the change came,” Mr. Pike eagerly repeated. “The idea that each man had to do it for himself kept us blinded to the fact that it was all social service; that they worked for the world, and the world treated them shamefully — so shamefully that their product was deteriorated, markedly deteriorated.”
“You will be continually surprised, Mr. Robertson, at the improvements of our output,” remarked Mr. Brown. “We have standards in every form of manuf acture, required standards; and to label an article in correctly is a misdemeanor.”
“That was just starting in the pure-food agitation, you remember,” my sister put in — (‘with apple juice containing one-tenth of one per cent, of benzoate of soda’).” “And now,” Mr. Brown continued, “ ‘all wool’ is all wool; if it isn’t, you can have the dealer arrested. Silk is silk, nowadays, and cream is cream.”
“And ‘caveat emptor’ is a dead letter?” “Yes, it is ‘caveat vendor’ now. You see, selling goods is public service.”
“You apply that term quite differently from what it stood for in my memory,” said I.
“It used to mean some sort of beneficent statesmanship, at first,” Nellie agreed. “Then it spread to various philanthropic efforts and wider grades of government activities. Now it means any kind of world work.”
She saw that this description did not carry much weight with me, and added, “Any kind of human work, John; that is, work a man gives his whole time to and does not himself consume, is world work — is social service.”
“If a man raises, by his own labor, just enough to feed himself — that is working for himself,” Mr. Brown explained, “but if he raises more corn than he consumes, he is serving humanity.”
“But he does not give it away,” I urged; “he is paid for it.”
“Well, you paid the doctor who saved your child’s life, but the doctor’s work was social service none the less — and the teacher’s — anybody’s.”
“But that kind of work benefits humanity — ”
“Yes, and does it not benefit humanity to eat — to have shoes and clothes and houses? John, John, wake up!” Nellie for the first time showed impatience with me. But my brother-in-law extended a protecting arm.
Now, Nellie, don’t hurry him. This thing will burst upon him all at once. Of course, it’s glaringly plain, but there was a time when you and I did not see it either.”
I was a little sulky. “Well, as far as I gather,” and I took out my note book, “people all of a sudden changed all their ideas about everything — and your demi-millennium followed.”
“I wish we could say that,” said Mrs. Allerton. “We axe not telling you of our present day problems and difficulties, you see. No, Mr. Robertson, we have merely removed our most obvious and patently unnecessary difficulties, of which poverty was at least the largest.
“What we did, as we have rather confusedly suggested, I’m afraid, was to establish such measures as to insure better births, and vastly better environment and education for every child. That raised the standard of the people, you see, and increased their efficiency. Then we provided employment for everyone, under good conditions, and improved the