from a heaven of peace and joy, from an ideal state inhabited by good people only, forest had thrown me into a deep dark sea of pity and doubt.
dr. leete and his family noticed, of course, the disturbed state of my thoughts, and while the doctor was evidently waiting for me to bring about a discussion of the social problems, edith was anxious to console me. she seemed to think that the strangeness of my surroundings and of my present position was depressing me.
i carefully avoided an explanation. i had resolved to continue the conversations with mr. forest, but to form a clear opinion of my own by examining into the actual state of things, and thus find if the real facts bore out the statements of dr. leete or those of mr. forest. therefore on my way to and from the college i strolled along the streets and conversed with all the people i met. i noticed with some surprise that everybody was reserved, yes even shy, when i commenced to ask about the administration of public affairs, about the principles underlying our form of government, about the behavior of the officers, the management of the storehouses, and whether the people were satisfied and pleased, or not.
65 hardly ever did i meet an expression either of cheerful contentment, or of decided dissatisfaction. only a few radicals expressed themselves in strong language against the present state of things and against the leaders of the country, and a few women said that they did not like the work in the factories at all. but, although people were very reserved in the expression of their feelings and thoughts, i became convinced that contentment is as rare a flower in the garden of communism as it was in the united states of 113 years ago. the abominable language used by the radicals against the highest officers of the country could not, of course, convince me that the latter were guilty of the charges preferred. but i could not elicit from any other man or from any other women of the rank and file of the industrial army a defense of the accused men. they evidently did not care to antagonize anybody when they were not called upon by one of their superiors to stand by the administration.
thus, i was forced to the conclusion, that communistic rule did not create the universal happiness i expected to find after my conversations with dr. leete. but i was inclined to think that people lived well enough, without great cares, neither on the one hand particularly content with their lot, nor on the other inclined to change their system of production. and it seemed to me that most of the people were rather dull and did not take much interest in anything. one day when i reached the house of dr.66 leete after one of my promenades through the streets of boston, as i entered the hall, i heard a very loud conversation in one of the rooms. the first words that arrested my attention, spoken in a deep voice, trembling with emotion, were: “miss edith has encouraged me to repeat my visits”.
“we are always glad to see you here, mr. fest”, dr. leete replied. “we have all invited you.”
“yes, you have; but you understand very well what i mean”, the deep voice continued. “i have called here so frequently and have to-day asked miss edith to become my wife, because your daughter has encouraged my hopes to win her love. and now i am coolly informed that i have made a great mistake, and i see my suspicion confirmed, that this bostonian of the nineteenth century, dug out by you from his grave in your garden, is the man whom miss edith prefers to all others, even the one she encouraged until a few days ago”.
“mr. fest, i wish you would represent the civilization of the twentieth century with more dignity when you are speaking of my daughter and of my guest”, said dr. leete with some emotion in his voice.
“of course, i must preserve my dignity when i have been fooled by a base flirtation for over a year, and make the discovery that the girl i love is to marry a man 143 years old, in preference to me”, mr. fest said in deep bitterness and somewhat sneeringly.
“how can you utter such cruel and untrue words,” edith exclaimed with angry excitement. “never67 has the thought entered my mind that your feelings toward me, your friend for over ten years, were anything but brotherly affection”.
“it is time to end this conversation”, interposed dr. leete, “after the explanations given, mr. fest undoubtedly feels, that our relations can not be continued”.
“of course, our relations can not be continued”, cried mr. fest in a rage. “i leave you now, and give you, now and here, fair warning that i shall not enter your house again as a friend. if i ever come again, it will be as an enemy to be avenged for the destruction of my happiness and the peace of my heart. beware of that day”!
the reckless manner in which this man addressed edith and her father aroused my anger, and, entering the room i said; “please save your cheap pathos for amateur theatricals and leave this room at once”.
the man before me was about six feet and three inches tall, with broad shoulders and two heavy fists. he looked down upon me with an ironical glance and said: “i will spare you this time, old man, but the next occasion that you indulge in impudent language, i will put you in a bag and dump you into massachusetts bay”.
before i could answer this pleasing threat, mr. fest had left the room and the house.
“who is this man?” i asked, turning to dr. leete, with no attempt to conceal my displeasure.
68 “he is a machinist, a very able man in his trade and a captain in the industrial army”, explained the doctor. “his parents lived next door and when he was a boy, he used to play with edith”.
“if i were to judge the social manners of the officers of the industrial army, by the experience of this hour, i should have to say that civilization has moved very slowly and rather backward than ahead”, i remarked.
“it is an extraordinary case of atavism”, said dr. leete. “such hotheadedness is very rare in our days”.
i did not care to begin just now, a conversation that might have a very unpleasant termination. but i could not repress the thought that 113 years ago the manners and morals were such, that lines were drawn between the two sexes that were invisible but still recognized by every one having a little sense of propriety, and that a man would hardly have felt as if he had been encouraged, if it were not the case. i entertained not the slightest doubt that edith had behaved as well as any girl of her time. it was the consequence of the tendency to equalize everything that had, perhaps, effaced to a certain degree the fine lines existing 113 years ago between good women and men. i remembered my question put to dr. leete: “and so the girls of the twentieth century tell their love”? and the doctor’s answer: “if they choose. there is no more pretense of a concealment of feeling69 on their part than on the part of their lovers”.[21]—yes, if girls tell their love just as men do, then the fine lines between the two sexes must be obliterated, and a feeling of repulsion and uneasiness took possession of me.
[21] page 266.
“it may become necessary to place mr. fest, at least for a few months, under medical treatment”, remarked dr. leete thoughtfully. “he is certainly in a high state of excitement, and it is not unlikely that he may commit a rash act which he would repent afterwards”.
“one hundred and thirteen years ago we would have placed such a man under bonds to keep the peace,” i said, considering with terror the idea, that a man could be placed in an insane asylum for uttering a few rash words.
“and if, in violation of his bond, he committed a breach of the peace”, said the doctor, “what did you then do with such a man”?
“we punished him according to the laws covering the case, either by imprisonment or by a fine, or in cases of murder, by putting the criminals to death”.
“we place a man in whom atavism makes its appearance, in a hospital where competent physicians take care of him until they consider him sufficiently cured to be released”, said dr. leete, with an expression of great satisfaction and kindness, as he lighted a fresh havana cigar.
“i think you are running no great risk, papa, if you allow that man to attend to the duties of his position”,70 edith remarked. “he is quick tempered and hot headed; but he will soon become composed”.
“i am not so sure about that”, dr. leete said slowly. “i remember that he has always shown deep strong feeling whenever he had set his heart upon anything. he may, and he may not, calm down. it is dangerous to take any chances with such a man”.
conflicting sentiments and ideas filled my heart and head. i felt that if i continued the conversation it might end in a conflict with dr. leete, and i was in no mood to engage in any discussion with him. so i excused myself on the plea of a bad head ache, and left the house to take a walk.
the experience of the last hour did not savor much of the millennium. here was a man holding the rank of an officer of the industrial army, and roughly and rudely accusing edith of flirtation. his behavior certainly did not correspond with the high praise dr. leete gave to the culture and education of the young people of the twentieth century. at all events this conflict between fest and the family of dr. leete demonstrated that contentment is not secured to humanity by the simple introduction of communism, by securing for everybody lodging, clothing and a sufficient quantity of good food. envy and jealousy threatened our love, and mr. fest seemed to be just the kind of a man to make his displeasure felt. the manner in which dr. leete proposed to prevent a rash act of the enraged lover appeared to me even more disagreeable than the prospect of a personal71 encounter with mr. fest. and again the question arose before my mind whether edith bartlett, my fiancée of 1887 would ever have given a man an opportunity to accuse her of flirtation or to assert that she had encouraged him to declare his love.
when i met mr. forest after my next lecture i remarked: “i understand the girls of the twentieth century are somewhat of the style that we would have called emancipated”.
with a short but sharp glance at my pale face which testified that i had passed a sleepless night, mr. forest replied: “the mad endeavor to equalize the variety, established by nature, has not spared the relations between women and men. both sexes belong to the industrial army, both have their own officers and judges, both receive the same pay. the queen of your old-fashioned household has been dethroned. we take our meals in great steam-feeding establishments, and if our radicals, who are in fact the logical communists, are victorious, we will all live together in lodging houses accommodating thousands of people. marriage will be abolished, together with religion and all personal property; free love will be proclaimed and we will live together like a flock of rabbits. the natural sense of propriety which is a distinguishing quality of the finer sex, fortunately prevents most of our women and girls becoming victims of the low and degrading theories of communism. but the real girl of our period is a very remarkable although by no means agreeable72 specimen. do you know miss cora delong, a cousin of miss edith leete”?
“i have not the pleasure”.
“you will not escape her”, mr. forest predicted with a smile of amusement. “miss cora is very enthusiastic over the absolute equality of women and men. and since some of our young men are courting their young lady friends, miss cora thinks it but fair and proper that she should court some of the young men. she does not hesitate to tell them that she admires their good looks, that she loves them; she asks them for kisses, invites them to a drink—just as young men talk to young girls and just as they invite them to have a plate of ice cream.—she smokes cigars and plays billiards with her male friends, and is doing all she can to “equalize” the sexes. and miss cora as well as the other “girls of our period” complains very loudly that she cannot abolish all the differences between woman and man”.
“i am not very anxious to make the acquaintance of miss cora delong”, i confessed. “and i agree with you from my own personal experience that the old style of housekeeping is very agreeable. i would prefer it. but do not the women of the twentieth century lead a more comfortable life than even the wealthy ladies of my former days? and are you not getting more toil out of the women than we did? dr leete says you are”[22].
[22] page 266.
“dr. leete is a great optimist whenever communism is discussed”, answered mr. forest. “it is, of course,73 impossible to state with any degree of certainty, how much the girls and women of the year 1887 produced. but i doubt very much the statement of your host that we are getting a great deal more toil out of our women than you did”.
“the separate cooking, washing and ironing at the end of the nineteenth century must have caused a great deal more work than the present way of doing these things”, i remarked. “and dr. leete said: there is no housework to be done”[23].
[23] page 118.
“this is one of the many wild statements of dr. leete”, mr. forest answered. “who is sweeping the rooms, making the beds, cleaning the windows, dusting the furniture, scrubbing the floors? i have no doubt that dr. leete’s family is an exception, because women of the industrial army do a great deal, if not all, this work in the house of the leader of the administration party. have you ever seen mrs. leete or miss edith doing any housework of the kind i have mentioned”?
i had to confess that i never had, and, indeed, miss edith had never done anything except arrange a bunch of flowers. if she were a member of the industrial army, it must be in a capacity, where there was but very little work to do. she had never mentioned that she had duties to perform, and i remembered that dr. leete had once spoken of his daughter as an indefatigable shopper[24], thus indicating that she had much spare time.
[24] page 99.
74
“in the houses occupied by the rank and file of our industrial army the women have no help from other members of the auxiliary corps (the women of the industrial army). these women have to do all the work i have mentioned, and for them the cooking in the public eating houses is not such a great help as dr. leete seems to believe”, began mr. forest. “these women have to change their dresses three times a day, for they cannot appear at the table in the wrapper they wear while working at home, and they have to wash and dress their children, if they have any. and i am inclined to believe that by having the cooking done in the public eating houses, a great deal of material is squandered that would be saved in a private house. besides, the public cooking houses have to prepare a large bill of fare, and there is, as a matter of course, a great deal left over that can not be used afterwards.—therefore, the women who are members of the industrial army find actually very little time to do any work besides the labor connected with housekeeping, and the majority of them would rather do the cooking at home. they could do it while busy with their housework, without losing more time than the dressing and undressing for breakfast, dinner and supper consume. and the complaint has frequently been made that families with many children would fare much better, and the mothers of such families save much time if the cooking were done at home. when there is sickness in the family, it is very annoying to the healthy members75 to be obliged to go to the eating houses to procure proper food for the invalid. a mrs. hosmer said to me the other day, she and her seven children had frequently missed a meal, because she could not wash all her little ones and dress herself and the children in time”.
“how do you employ the married women”? i asked.
“this is a very weak point in our social system”, mr. forest replied. “most of the married women do not at all relish doing outside work, and they make all kinds of excuses to avoid it. trouble with their children and personal indisposition are frequently used as excuses for the absence of married women from their positions in the industrial army”.
“i suppose it is very difficult, even for the physicians, to ascertain whether such statements are well founded or not”, i remarked.
“of course, in the majority of cases it is impossible to make the charge of shamming and prove it”, mr. forest continued. “it is this trouble with the married women, and their excuses that their small children prevent them doing any duty in the industrial army, that the radical communists are using in support of their demand for the abolition of private housekeeping. the radicals claim that their system would be more prosperous than ours. it would be much cheaper to lodge hundreds or thousands under one roof, than to have houses for one, two or three families. they furthermore claim that if marriages were76 abolished and free love introduced as the principle governing the relations of the two sexes, the passing alliances of men and women would produce better children than the offspring of the present marriages. these children would be kept and nursed, after they had passed their first year, in large nurseries, so that the mothers would have nothing to do with them and could attend all day to their work as members of the industrial army”.
“how beastly are these theories”! i exclaimed. “to establish all human institutions, the relations of the sexes, simply on a basis of calculation, and to separate the mothers from their children, because it is cheaper to raise two hundred mammifers by the bulk even if the mortality should be ten and twenty percent larger”!
“but the radicals are the logical communists”, mr. forest said. “the fundamental principle of communism is equality. you can base the demand for the equal division of the products of labor on that principle of equality only, and if we are all equal, then there is no reason why we should live in houses of different architecture, why we should wear different clothing, why we should have a variety of meals, why one man should not have just as good a right to the love of a certain girl as any and all other men, and why one girl should not have just as fair a claim to the love of any man she may select as any other girl has. and there is no reason, why one baby should have more care than another and why one mother77 should spend more time on her child than another, thus perhaps losing time that would have enabled her to make herself useful by peeling a plate of potatoes. the radicals are the only communists”.
“but every girl can not love all the men, and every man can not very well love all the girls”, i objected, somewhat amused by the grim humor displayed by mr. forest, although my deep disgust for the abominable brutality preached by the radicals, prevented real merriment.
“our radical reformers have never been able to explain to my entire satisfaction how the principle of free love should be regulated, if regulated at all”, mr. forest answered. “some of them seem disposed to grant permission to live together, so long as both parties like each other. but the more radical and logical communists object to the stability of an institution as incongruous with the spirit of institutions based on the principle of absolute equality. perhaps they favor the choosing of a new partner every day, and in order to place both sexes on equal footing they would give the right of choice to the women on mondays, wednesdays and fridays, and to the men on the other three week-days, leaving the sundays in addition to the ladies. and to avoid strife, when a number of reformers demand the love of the same girl, or when more girls than one fall in love with the78 same man, they could draw lots or could raffle for the first chance, thus doing justice to all”[25].
[25] the well known naturalist, professor karl vogt in germany, famous by his nickname “monkey-vogt,” is a radical philosopher, who gained this sobriquet as an advocate of the theory of evolution, claiming monkeys to have the same progenitors as man. but even vogt’s radicalism revolted against the doctrines set forth by russian, french and german nihilists and anarchists; during a “convention” held in switzerland, karl vogt dedicated the following lines to them:
“wir wollen in der sonn’ spazieren,
wir wollen uns mit fett beschmieren
und ausgel?scht sei mein und dein.
wir wollen uns mit schnapps berauschen,
wir wollen uns’re weiber tauschen,
wir wollen freie m?nner sein!”
a free translation of which reads:
we will walk in the sun, boys, with ease,
we will cover our bodies with grease,
for poverty there is no need.
we’ll all get as drunk as a loon,
we’ll swap our wives every noon,
and thus be true freemen indeed.
“it is inconceivable”, i said, “that men, proudly considering themselves the crown of creation, or if they do not believe in god, at least considering themselves intellectual free-thinkers, can breed in their brains such horrid theories. i should deplore the fate of womanhood if these theories should ever become victorious, if free love in this damnable form should ever be proclaimed; or if the nursing and education of children should be taken away from the mothers and entrusted to others”.
“i should consider it the most terrible blow ever aimed at humanity if the nursing and the first education of the young children should be transferred from their mothers to other persons. no women or men, however good and noble they may be, can feel the love and the patience for a child that fills a mother’s heart. the ties that bind women and men together, marriage and the family, are institutions which even our communistic solons have so far respected. humanity is doomed to barbarism on the day family life is broken up, when mothers are separated from their79 children, when men are alienated from the constantly elevating influence of good women, when the relations of men and women are stripped of that sublimity conferred upon matrimonial life by the permanent exchange of feelings and thoughts, when these relations are degraded to nothing but sexual intercourse. nearly all our good qualities can be traced back to the influence the unfathomable love and patience of the mother, in her efforts to make her beloved child good and true, have exercised upon our minds and hearts. nearly all great men had good mothers. there is nothing on earth that could compensate a child for the loss of its mother, or that could indemnify humanity for the loss of the beneficial influence mothers have on the growing generation”.
“do you suppose that your radicals will ever have power enough to dethrone the mothers and to abolish matrimonial life”? i asked, with great curiosity.
mr. forest’s reply to this question sounded very cheerful and confident, more so than anything he had thus far uttered in my presence.
80 “the radicals may rise and overthrow the present government, they may change many things”, he said, “and they may not meet with much resistance, because the great mass of the people simply tolerate the present rule, have no love for it, and will not rally to its defense. but the experience of our radicals will be very unpleasant if they attempt to separate man and wife, mother and child. almost every mother will fight like a lioness before she will give up her children, and i know one man who does not care a straw for the overthrow of the present government, but who would fight to his death before he would yield to a separation from his spouse. for a good and loving wife always has been, is, and always will be the greatest blessing of god, and no man of honor and courage will permit anybody to rob him of her”!
