“I had no idea it would be so hard to tell you things,” she said. “You’ll have to just see for yourself, I guess.”
“Do go on, Nellie. I’ll be good. You were going to tell me, in a nutshell, what had happened — please do.”
“The thing that has happened,” said she, slowly, “is just this. The world has come alive. We are doing in a pleasant, practical way, all the things which we could have done, at any time before — only we never thought so. The real change is this: we have changed our minds. This happened very soon after you left. Ah! that was a time! To think that you should have missed it!” She gave my hand another sympathetic squeeze and went on. “After that it was only a question of time, of how soon we could do things. And we’ve been doing them ever since, faster and faster.”
This seemed rather flat and disappointing.
“I don’t see that you make out anything wonderful — so far. A new Religion which seems to consist only in behaving better; and a gradual improvement of social conditions — all that was going on when I left.”
Nellie regarded me with a considering eye.
“I see how you interpret it,” she said, “behaving better in our early days was a small personal affair; either a pathetically inadequate failure to do what one could not, or a pharisaic, self-righteous success in doing what one could. All personal — personal!”
“Good behavior has to be a personal affair, hasn’t it?” I mildly protested.
“Not by any means!” said Nellie with decision. “That was precisely what kept us so small and bad, so miserably confined and discouraged. Like a lot of well-meaning soldiers imagining that their evolutions were ‘a personal affair’ — or an orchestra plaintively protesting that if each man played a correct tune of his own choosing, the result would be perfect! Dear! dear! No, Sir” she continued with some fierceness, “that’s just where we changed our minds! Humanity has come alive, I tell you and we have reason to be proud of our race!”
She held her head high, there was a glad triumphant look in her eyes — not in the least religious. Said she: “You’ll see results. That will make it clearer to you than anything I can say. But if I may remark that we have no longer the fear of death — much less of damnation, and no such thing as ‘sin’; that the only kind of prison left is called a quarantine — that punishment is unknown but preventive means are of a drastic and sweeping nature such as we never dared think of before — that there is no such thing in the civilized world as poverty — no labor problem — no color problem — no sex problem — almost no disease — very little accident — practically no fires — that the world is rapidly being reforested — the soil improved; the output growing in quantity and quality; that no one needs to work over two hours a day and most people work four — that we have no graft — no adulteration of goods — no malpractice — no crime.”
“Nellie,” said I, “you are a woman and my sister. I’m very sorry, but I don’t believe it.”
“I thought you wouldn’t,” said she. Women always will have the last word.
Chapter 3
THE blue shore line of one’s own land always brings a thrill of the heart; to me, buried exile as I had been, the heart-leap was choking.
Ours was a slow steamer, and we did not stop at Montauk where the mail and the swiftest travelers landed, nor in Jamaica Harbor with the immigrants.
As we swept along the sunny, level spaces of the South shore, Nellie told me how Long Island was now the “Reception Room” of our country, instead of poor, brutal little Ellis Island.
“The shores are still mostly summer places,” she said. “One of the most convincing of our early lines of advance was started on the South shore; and there are plenty of Country Clubs, Home Parks and things like that; but the bulk of the island toward the western end is an experiment station in applied sociology.
I was watching the bright shore hungrily. With a glass I could see many large buildings, not too closely set.
“I should think it would spoil the place for homes,” I said.
Nellie had a way of listening to my remarks, kindly and pleasantly, but as if I were somehow a long way off and she was trying to grasp what I said.
“In a way it did — at first;” she explained presently, “but even then it meant just as many homes for other people, and now it means so much more!”
She hesitated a moment and then plunged in resolutely.
“You’re in for a steady course of instructive remarks from now on. Everybody will be explaining things and bragging about them. We haven’t outgrown some of the smaller vices, you see. As to this ‘Immigration Problem’ — we woke up to this fact among others, that the ‘reintegration of peoples’ as Ward called it, was a sociological process not possible to stop, but quite possible to assist and to guide to great advantage. And here in America we recognized our own special place— “the melting pot you know?”
Yes, I remembered the phrase, I never liked it. Our family were pure English stock, and rightly proud of their descent.
“I begin to see, my dear sister, that while receiving the torrent of instructive remarks you foretell, the way of wisdom for me is steadfastly to withhold my own opinions.”
Nellie laughed appreciatively.
“You always had a long head, John. Well, whether you like it or not, our people saw their place and power at last and rose to it. We refuse no one. We have discovered as many ways of utilizing human waste as we used to have for the waste products of coal tar.”
“You don’t mean to say idiots and criminals?” I protested.
“Idiots, hopeless ones, we don’t keep any more,” she answered gently. “They are very rare now. The grade of average humanity is steadily rising; and we have the proud satisfaction of knowing we have helped it rise. We organized a permanent ‘reception committee’ for the whole country, one station here and one in California. Anybody could come — but they had to submit to our handling when they did come.”
“We used to have physical examination, didn’t we?”
“A rudimentary one. What we have now is Compulsory Socialization.”
I stared at her.
“Yes, I know! You are thinking of that geological kind of evolution people used to talk about, and ‘you can’t alter human nature.’ In the first place, we can. In the second place, we do. In the third place, there isn’t so much alteration needed as we used to think. Human nature is a pretty good thing. No immigrant is turned loose on the community till he or she is up to a certain standard, and the children we educate.”
“We always did, didn’t we?”
“Always did? Why brother, we didn’t know what the word meant in your time.”
“I shall be glad to follow that up,” I assured her. “Education was improving even in the old days, I remember. I shall be glad to see the schools.”
“Some of them you won’t know when you do see them,” said Nellie. “On Long Island we have agricultural and industrial stations like — like — I think we had something like it in some of our Western colleges, which it was the fashion to look down upon. We have a graded series of dwellings where the use of modern conveniences is taught to all newcomers.”
“Suppose they won’t learn? They used to prefer to live like hogs, as I remember.”
Again Nellie looked at me as if I were speaking to her from a distance.
“We used to say so — and I suppose we used to think so — some of us. But we know better now. These people are not compelled to come to our country, but if they come they know what they have to do — and they do it. You may have noticed that we have no ‘steerage’.”
I had noticed it.
“They have decent surroundings from the first step. They have to be antiseptically clean, they and all their belongings, before entering the ship.”
“But what an awful expense!” I ventured.
“Suppose you keep cattle, John, and knew how to fatten and improve them; and suppose your ranch was surrounded by strays — mavericks �
�� anxious to come in. Would you call it ‘an expense’ to add to your herd?”
“You can’t sell people.”
“No, but you can profit by their labor.”
“That sounds like the same old game. I should think your Socialism would have put an end to that.”
“Socialism did not alter the fact that wealth comes by labor,” she replied. “All these people work. We provide the opportunity for them, we train them to higher efficiency, especially the children. The very best and wisest of us are proud to serve there — as women used to be proud when they were invited ‘to help receive’ some personage. We receive Humanity — and introduce it to America. What they produce is used to cover the expense of their training, and also to lay up a surplus for themselves.”
“They must produce more than they used to,” observed I drily.
“They do,” said Nellie. You might as well finish this thing up,” I said. “Then when people talk to me about immigration, I can look intelligent and say, ‘I know about that.’ And really, I’m interested. How do you begin with ‘em?”
“When they come into Jamaica Harbor they see a great crescent of white piers, each with its gate. We’ll go and see it some day — splendid arches with figures on them, like the ones they used to put up for Triumphs. There’s the German Gate and the Spanish Gate, the English Gate, the Italian Gate — and so on. There is welcome in their own language — and instruction in ours. There is physical examination — the most searching and thorough — microscopic — chemical. They have to come up to a certain standard before they are graduated, you see.”
“Graduated?”
“Yes. We have a standard of citizenship now — an idea of what people ought to be and how to make them so. Dear me! To think that you don’t know about that—”
“I shouldn’t think they’d stand for it — all this examination and so on.”
“No country on earth offers so much happiness to its people. Nowhere else — yet — is there as good opportunity to be helped up, to have real scientific care, real loving study and assistance! Everybody likes to be made the most of! Everybody — nearly — has the feeling that they might be something better if they had a chancel We give them the chance.”
“Then I should think you’d have all creation on your hands at once.”
“And depopulate the other nations? They had something to say about that! You see this worked all sorts of ways. In the first place, when we got all the worst and lowest people, that left an average of better ones at home — people who could learn more quickly. When we proved what good stuff human nature was, rightly treated, they all took heart of grace and began to improve their own. Then, as our superior attractions steadily drew off ‘the lower classes,’ that raised the value of those who remained. They were better paid, better thought of at home. As more and more people came to us, the other nations got rather alarmed, and began to establish counter attractions — to keep their folks at home. Also, many other nations had some better things than we did, you remember. And finally most people love their own country better than any other, no matter how good. No, the balance of population is not seriously altered.”
“Still, with such an influx of low-grade people you must have a Malthusian torrent of increasing population on your hands.”
Again that odd listening look, her head a little on one side.
I have to keep remembering,” she said. Have to recall what people wrote and said and thought in the past generation. The idea was that people had to increase like rabbits, and would eat up the food supply, so wars and pestilences and all manner of cruel conditions were necessary to ‘keep down the population.’ Wasn’t that it?”
“You are twenty years out, my dear!” I rejoiced to assure her. “We had largely passed that, and were beginning to worry about the decreasing birth rate — among the more intelligent. It was only the lowest grade that kept on ‘like rabbits’ as you say. But it’s that sort you seem to have been filling in with. I should think it would have materially lowered the average. Or have you, in this new ‘forcing system’ made decent people out of scrubs?”
“That’s exactly what we’ve done; we’ve improved the people and lowered the birth-rate at one stroke!”
“They were beginning to talk eugenics when I left.”
“This is not eugenics — we have made great advances in that, of course; but the chief factor in this change is a common biological law— ‘individuation is in inverse proportion to reproduction,’ you know. We individualize the women — develop their personal power, their human characteristics — and they don’t have so many children.”
“I don’t see how that helps unless you have eliminated the brutality of men.”
“My dear brother, the brutality of men lowered the birthrate — it didn’t raise it! One of those undifferentiated peasant women would have a baby every year if she was married to a saint — and she couldn’t have more in polyandry — unless it were
J” twins I No, the birthrate was for women to settle — and they have.”
“Out of fashion to have children at all?”
“No, John, you needn’t sneer. We have better children than ever were born on earth before, and they grade higher every year. But we are approaching a balanced population.”
I didn’t like the subject, and turned to the clear skyline of the distant city. It towered as of old, but seemed not so close-packed. Not one black cloud — and very few white ones!
“You’ve ended the smoke nuisance, I’m glad to see. Has steam gone, too?”
“We use electricity altogether in all the cities now,” she said. “It occurred to us that to pipe a leaking death into every bedroom; to thread the city with poison, fire and explosion, was foolish.”
“Defective wiring used to cause both death and conflagration, didn’t it?”
“It did,” she admitted; “but it is not ‘defective’ any more.” Is the coal all gone?” if
“No, but we burn it at the mines — by a process which does not waste ninety per cent of the energy — and transmit the power.”
“For all New York?”
“Oh, no. New York has enough water power, you see. The tide mills are enough for this whole region.”
“They solved the tide-mill problem, did they?”
“Yes. There are innumerable mechanical advances, of course. You’ll enjoy them.”
We were near enough now to see the city clearly.
“What a splendid water front!” I cried. “Why, this is glorious.”
It surely was. The wide shores swung away, glittering in the pure sunlight. Staten Island lay behind us, a vision of terraced loveliness; the Jersey shore shone clear, no foul pall of oil smoke overhanging; the Brooklyn banks were banks of palaces, and Manhattan itself towered royally before us, all bordered with broad granite piers.
“‘Marginal mile after mile of smooth-running granite embankment’” quoted Nellie. “‘Broad steps of marble descending for the people to enter the water. White-pillared piers”
“Look at the water!” I cried, suddenly. “It’s clear!”
“Of course it’s clear,” she agreed laughingly. “This is a civilized country, I tell you.”
I looked and looked. It was blue and bright in the distance; it was a clear, soft green beneath us. I saw a fish leap”
“So far I’m with you, anyhow,” said I. “That certainly is a big step — and looks like a miracle. New York harbor clean! . . . How about customs?” I asked as we drew in.
“Gone — clean forgotten — with a lot of other foolishness. The air ships settled that. We couldn’t plant custom houses in the air, you see — along ten thousand miles of coast and border.”
I was watching the shore. There were plenty of people about, but strangely gay of aspect and bright-colored in raiment. I could see amusement piers — numbers of them — some evidently used as gymnasia, in some there was dancing. Motor cars of all descriptions ran swiftly and quietly about. Air ships, large and small,
floated off, to the north and west mostly. The water was freckled with pleasure boats. I heard singing — and music.
“Some new holiday?” I ventured.
“Not at all,” said my sister. “It is afternoon.”
She watched me, quizzically.
“It is afternoon,” she repeated. “Let that sink in!”
It sank in, slowly.
“Do you mean that no one works in the afternoon?”
“No one — except those who don’t work in the morning. Some kinds of work can’t stop, of course; but most kinds can. I told you before — no one has to work more than two hours a day; most people work four. Why?” She saw my unbelieving stare. “Because we like to. Also because we are ambitious,” she went on. “I told you of the gain we’ve made in ‘the civilized world.’ Not all of it is civilized. We are still missionarying. And while there is need of help anywhere on earth, most of us work overtime. Also it lays up public capital — we are planning some vast undertakings — and gives a wider margin for vacations.”
I was thinking in a hazy way of a world that was not tired, not driven, no nose on any grindstone; of a people who only had to work two hours — and worked four! Yet there was every evidence of increased wealth.
Suddenly Nellie gave a joyous little cry.
“Why, there’s Owen!” she waved her veil. “And there’s Jerrold and Hallier. She fairly danced with pleasure.
I could see a big grayish man madly waving his hat down there — and two young folks hopping up and down and flourishing handkerchiefs, among many similarly excited.
“Oh, how good of him!” she cried. “I never dreamed they’d be here!”
“Nellie,” said I sternly. “You never told me you were married!”
“Why should I?” she asked innocently. “You never asked me.”
I had not. I had seen that she signed her name “Ellen Robertson,” and I knew she was president of a college — how could I imagine her married. Married she evidently was, and even her long-lost brother was forgotten for a moment as the big man engulfed her in his gray overcoat, and the tall son and daughter added their arms to the group.
Complete Works of Charlotte Perkins Gilman Page 38