Chapter VI: Part 6

To the adverbs, however, must be given the preeminence among all human words. But even here there are gradations in rank. Thus the adverb, "Why?" may be nothing but a question of curiosity, and hence its idea may be suggested to an inquisitive monkey. But it is not so with the question, "How?" "Why?" may be answered by an affirmation, but "How?" can be answered only by a demonstration. Now, as our object is to call speech to witness as to what is in man, or, in other words, what man is himself, we will proceed to analyze the testimony of this word, "How?"

"HOW" FINDS A PLANET

First: It does not refer to anything which appears on the surface. Instead, it seeks to find the hidden and the unknown by following up one clue after another. When the astronomer, Leverrier, found that the planets Saturn and Uranus did not come to time, he asked himself how that could be. Meanwhile, the answer to any number of "hows" must have been previously demonstrated by him and by other astronomers before the movements of these great and distant heavenly bodies could be shown as not according to the clock-like regularity of planets in their courses. He reasoned that only one probable "how" could account for the facts; namely, another planet of just such a size and weight, and moving at just such a distance, would suffice thus to hold back Saturn and Uranus in their orbits. And so he calculated how large this heavenly body was, how heavy it was, and then just where it was, until, by this human but sure detective system, astronomers caught sight of Neptune--after Leverrier told them where to look for it.

But, after all, to decide how the vast heavenly bodies move in space is easy compared with finding out how to make a sewing machine go. For a needle to thread itself and then rapidly proceed to sew without the help of fingers calls for the discovery of more "hows" than are needed to explain Laplace's "Mecanique celeste." Mass and gravity suffice for the one, but only a Yankee's mind could have created the other.

We have now come to a great word--"create." A creator is a being who gives origin to things which would not exist but for his intelligent purpose and design. Now, man has simply filled this earth with his own creations, all due to himself alone and to none other, and all again by pondering the question, "How?" He began, for instance, by putting a hole through a flint hatchet, and ended with putting a hole through the Alps. In this last, an engineer stood at the foot of the great mountain and asked himself how he could tunnel it for nations to pass through. He saw a small stream dashing down the mountainside and at once found his desired "how," for he made that stream work big drills by compressed air, till the everlasting rocks themselves had to give in.

But man is an infinite creator--by which we mean that his creative capacity is limitless and inexhaustible. No sooner does he create one thing than he turns to create another thing totally different from it. A locomotive thundering past with a long train has no resemblance to a telegraph line, nor that, in turn, to a great printing press. Man coolly sets at defiance the most fundamental laws of physical science.

Thus, a heavy load of passengers, sitting in no less heavy cars, if put on a smooth inclined plane must slide down faster and faster to the bottom, or Vulcan would be confounded. But man strings a thin wire overhead, which would snap instantly if the load gave it one pull; but something which, some "how," man causes to pass along that wire, makes the trolley with its live freight go uphill faster than a horse can run.

THE ETHER ENSLAVED

And what about that mysterious ether? It can neither be seen, heard, felt, handled, smelt, nor tasted. Nevertheless, man has learned so much about its "how" that he is turning it into as menial a servant, obedient to his wishes, as he has made of electricity, the cause of sublime thunder; for man bids the ether carry his stock quotations or any other message of his to the ends of the earth.

These are great doings, but really no greater than his small doings, for the least of these is just as impossible for other earthly creatures as are an Alpine tunnel or a battleship. A large convention of chimpanzees could not combine to make one pin or one sleeve-button, if they tried.

All this is because man is native to the world of relations, which no other earthly beings are, because they cannot go beyond the information provided by their bodily senses. Man, on the contrary, gains infinitely more knowledge than his bodily senses can afford. By studying the relations of abstract points to abstract lines, he becomes a mathematician. Following up the many "hows" of chemistry, he talks about molecules, atoms, and ions as fluently as: if he had seen or handled them.

MAN IS INVISIBLE

This explains how man can and does create. Every great invention existed first in the mind of the inventor. So the great engineer who made the Brooklyn Bridge never had to handle one of the materials used in its construction, for every stone, wire, and bolt was provided for in that engineer's mind before any part of that tremendous mass of matter could be seen on the earth.

Moreover, this great human creator is as invisible as the Divine Creator Himself. People are continually saying that they will not believe in a thing till they can see it, thus pinning their faith to the testimony of that one of our senses which makes more mistakes than do all our other senses put together. When a man six feet high is a mile off, it says that he is only six inches high. The eye can see nothing of the vast microscopic living world which lies within six inches of the eyeball, and so we have had to invent a microscope to make up for this serious deficiency. But what would the Russian Witte not have given if he could have telegraphed to St. Petersburg that he had actually SEEN the Japanese Komura while they were talking about making peace at Portsmouth, New Hampshire, and that he knew just what the courteous Jap thought and proposed! All that he saw was the Asiatic's smiling face and other things of his outside. Every human personality belongs to the real world, the world of the Unseen, and cannot be known except as he chooses to reveal himself.

BRAIN NOT THE MAN

Some persons might object here that the brain is both visible and tangible in man, and that man is in his brain, and, therefore, the brain is man. Medical science, however, shows that the brain no more thinks than the hand and foot do, but is simply the instrument of the invisible thinker. The proof of this is that we have two brains, just as we have two eyes and two ears, but that only one of our two brain hemispheres is the instrument for talking, thinking, or knowing. Which one of the two hemispheres will be the mental one will depend altogether on how it has been TAUGHT by the invisible thinker, who will begin to teach the left hemisphere if he is right-handed, or the right hemisphere if he is left-handed. He will leave the other hemisphere in each case wholly speechless or thoughtless, and concerned only with the business of governing the muscles or receiving the bodily sensations of its corresponding side. If brain matter really itself thought, we should have two thinking and speaking hemispheres--and this the first case of loss of speech by an apoplectic clot would disprove.

"By thy words thou shalt be judged." This means that man is to be judged by his own creations, for it is only men who create words. By their words they show what is in them, both intellectually and morally. We have demonstrated that the being who can ask the question, "How?" naturally belongs to the universe. Already he knows what stuff inconceivably distant stars are made of; and the "how" to know that he found in a small glass prism.

THE MORAL "HOW"

It would seem, therefore, as if it were by some temporary accident that he is held to this little material speck of matter called the earth. And this impression grows upon us as we study the greatest facts of human life. We enter this world knowing nothing and not nearly so well equipped to take care of ourselves as are other animals. There is no helplessness like that of a babe. But wonderfully early he begins to ask the question, "How?" A little boy will ask more questions in a day than his father will ask in a week; nor can he be stopped or deceived, because the question, "Why?" you can answer as you please, but not "How?"

He who can ask "How?" can be a learner as long as he exists, whether here or hereafter. In his life here he may become either a great financier or a great statesman, but certainly not either unless he knows how. Any education, in fact, is simply learning how.

What is true in the intellectual world is still more true in the moral world. Whenever a question bearing on morals enters, every one should stop and ask, "How?" A mistake here is like entering the wrong gate in a large railroad station. The longer you stay in its corresponding train, the farther it will take you from where you should go. For example, there are some who say that the human will is not free, but that our actions are all, in the last analysis, according to our make-up. In other words, we are machines which must go as they are made to go. There is, therefore, no right nor wrong in human conduct, for machines cannot be held responsible for conduct or the way they go--there can be no sinful automobile or wicked windmill.

According to these reasoners, therefore, when human law punishes one who has robbed a widow of all she had, or has seduced the daughter of a friend, or committed a cold-blooded murder, the law is wholly illogical in punishing him, because, since he is a machine, his punishment is like throwing a clock out of a window if it does not keep good time. The only answer to such a talker should be, "Get out!" with particular emphasis on the "out."

----WHO WOULD BE A YOUNG LADY

By SARAH N. CLEGHORN

1830

Sister walks past the garden wall In monstrous hoop, and slippers small, And polonaise, and sash, and all, To join the Dorcas Circle.

She'll sit indoors, and stitch, and moon, And sip her tea, and clink her spoon, This whole blue, breezy afternoon! For so do all Young Ladies.

Come, Poll, come, Bet! Escaped from school, We'll wade across the shallows cool Of Roaring Tom and Silver Pool, And climb the pines of Randal.

Far up the mountain path we'll go, And leave the Raven Rocks below, And creep inside the caves of snow, To hear their echoes thunder!

Let briers scratch, let brambles tear Our oft-patched frocks--we shall not care: Green are the woods, and fresh the air; Then who would be a Young Lady?

***************************************************************** Vol. XXIII No.2 AUGUST 1910

INSTEAD OF AN ARTICLE {page 209-214} About Pittsburg and, Incidentally, about Editing a Magazine

Important articles in magazines of the type of "COLLIER'S," "MCCLURE'S," the "AMERICAN," and "EVERYBODY'S," like plays, are rewritten rather than written. Too begin with, there must be the idea, then to find the man or woman best able to embody it. That settled, the author must steep himself in his subject. When he acquires mastery, his findings are written down and submitted to the editor. This may take months; it often requires years.

It has happened that the editor did not know what he wanted until he read this first draft. Now he has the subject spread before him by an authority. His associates all read it and criticise. Sometimes that first draft is flawless, but most often it is returned to the author with direction for reconstruction. The process may be repeated half a dozen times. Finally the manuscript is satisfactory, which means that it is valuable, simply expressed, and readable. It is in shape for publication. It is put into type and sent around to outside experts who are the representative authorities on the subject.

In these days a magazine can afford to have its conclusions disputed, but its facts must be incontrovertible. Perhaps the trouble the big publications take to be right--and that means square and just, as well as accurate--explains such prestige and influence as they now enjoy in America.

At a women's club gathering in Mississippi, recently, Harris Dickson told his audience something about an article of his that had recently appeared in "EVERYBODY'S." He explained that a manuscript written by another man had been sent him to put in shape. The facts were there, and the moral, but the treatment was technical. It lacked carrying power. Dickson knew nothing of the other author, and so proceeded to get up the subject at first hand. He took not one of the facts for granted. After three months he returned the revised manuscript to the magazine. It was sent back, with specific directions for rewriting. In due course he again remailed it to the editor, who congratulated him on his achievement--for that is what it was. Then the article, having attained a satisfactory form (it was on Fraternal Insurance), was sent round among the experts. The first man who read it was a high official of one of the old line insurance companies, but a hearty believer in the fraternal system. He returned it with approval and an elaborate criticism. Then it was submitted to the chief insurance commissioner of a western state--the undoubted political authority on the subject. The approval and criticisms of both men, with the manuscript, were again forwarded to Mr. Dickson. The necessary corrections having been incorporated, the manuscript was ready for the printer. To make assurance doubly sure, proofs were sent out to prominent officials of leading fraternal organizations, who returned them with most commendatory letters. And then, and only then, did it appear in the magazine.

Mr. Dickson's audience, doubtless under the impression that magazines are produced by editors out of the contributions sent them by mail, expressed surprise that so much time, effort, and money should be devoted to what seemed a comparatively unimportant subject. Yet it involved a matter that concerned five million men and their families, and a tremendous controversy. Its appearance has made the controversy even keener, and of course the enemies of sanity and good order in fraternalism are now hurling bolts at us. However, when we have done our part and know we are right, we stay put.

Mr. Dickson told part of what to us is a familiar story. In this instance he knew nothing of the time and trouble the author and ourselves had taken just to get together the facts and place them in the right perspective. We began on this particular article in November, 1906, and during the interval it was being worked at or over by one of some dozen men. The same is true of most of our big series. "The Woman's Invasion" represented two and a half years of work. Fifteen months elapsed between the delivery of Judge Lindsey's first manuscript and the beginning of publication in the magazine. Trained writers, the best men we know about, are out investigating and gathering the facts for the articles we will print a year hence. This is the process of magazine making to-day. It is not peculiar to "EVERYBODY'S"; it is the rule with "COLLIER'S," "MCCLURE'S," the AMERICAN, and SUCCESS."

INSTEAD OF AN ARTICLE

This is all by way of introduction to the story of an article that was not written. About the time the Pittsburg flare-up began to show itself in the papers, it occurred to us that some exposition of the situation there would be of value and interest to our readers. Before going about it, we debated it very carefully. Some of us in the office (and this magazine is edited by all of us) were fairly familiar with the subject, and we believed it would subserve no useful purpose to tackle it along the "Shame of the Cities" lines. We agreed that the way to approach Pittsburg was to consider what had happened there, not as a sporadic outburst, but as an economic symptom. Whom could we get that was far enough from the controversies involved to treat the subject objectively and with a big perspective? Brand Whitlock. The Mayor of Toledo knows more about cities and their governments, and the evils that arise within them, than any other man, and he can write--with knowledge, with sympathy, with clarity. Also he knew Pittsburg. So we telegraphed to find if he was free to write an article, and, when he replied in the affirmative, the following letter was sent him:

April 1, 1910. DEAR MR. WHITLOCK:

The article we want is on Pittsburg. It is neither our purpose nor our desire merely to "muckrake" Pittsburg or any other city. The eruption there is typical of similar conditions in other great civic centers throughout the country, and it seems to us it might be made the text of a diagnosis of the whole municipal problem in America.

Here are a few thoughts that occur to me which might be represented:

We have come to realize that the real trouble in our country is Privilege. Big business, in its ruthless pursuit of results, has the ultimate responsibility for the ills that confront us in political, social, and commercial life. The graft scandals, the bank defalcations, etc., are simply symptoms of internal disorders. They are the eruptions of the disease.

Pittsburg might be called the typical get-rich-quick community. Its great wealth is based on the abundant coal and iron with which the Creator loaded its environment. Down on those deposits fasten thousands of Americans seized with the mania of money-making. They coin the coal and iron into millions. They work feverishly; they work their men furiously. It's a mad, frenzied scramble for success and sensation. To get rich quicker, they exact excessive protection from Congress--first to prop up infant industries, then to consolidate abnormal profits. If the government undertakes to deny their demands, they bluster first, then intrigue, then intimidate. Mills are closed down; the "prosperity" of the country is threatened, lobbies are organized, corruption funds subscribed, until Congress succumbs and new "jokers" are written into steel tariffs.

In the meantime a huge city is upreared. But this city is run for the benefit of its industries, not for the comfort of its inhabitants. Street railway, gas, electric corporations are organized, ostensibly to serve the community, actually enabling a greedy group to make more money. Again, what cannot be gained by request is won by force and guile.

Over and over again the various processes are repeated, until you have built up a sort of City Monstrous, dedicated to machinery, in which all the men and many of the women are just machines, and there is no ideal save that of feverish industrial adventure and accomplishment. Power--blind, ruthless, marvel-working, bending backs and bodies to its will--is Pittsburg's god, and Success its divine attribute Success that spells Gold, the instrument of exploitation and sensation. What wonder that weaker men, confronted by the colossal rewards of industrial conquest, are frenzied with the gold fever? In the absence of communal patriotism, graft becomes an incident. Graft and greed are the minor watchwords of success. Get money, anyway--but get it. Is it surprising that cashiers graft, that aldermen graft, that city officials graft, that there's a very pandemonium of graft? Isn't it the way the other fellows get rich?

All of a sudden the poison clogs the pores, and the infection blotches the surface--and every one is horrified. The great manufacturers, the great merchants, the great lawyers--high priests of the Power God--throw up their hands. Can such things be? Dreadful, horrible!--blindly oblivious of their own responsibility for the epidemic.

More startling still to the conquerors were the pitiless revelations of the Survey, exhibiting in mathematical terms the cost to the human factor of this monstrous material success. Hordes of anaemic, emaciated men and women, exhausted by long hours of toil, piled thick in wretched hovels, underfed, half-clothed, dragging out a miserable existence unrelieved by leisure or rest or recreation--the Juggernaut toll of efficiency--of the passion for results at any price. Against this horror, what avails Pittsburg's panorama of splendid churches, of lordly palaces, of noble art museums, of great orchestras, richly endowed educational institutions--the patriotic tribute of the conquerors to civilization? What is this boasted civilization of ours worth--not Pittsburg's only, for Pittsburg is an incident--if it be reared on the wrecked and depleted bodies of men at its base?

There would then be the opportunity in the article to suggest the regenerated Pittsburg--all this furious energy hitherto devoted to material success turned to social betterment and decent government. The turn of the worker comes. The conquerors, having learned that they cannot take greedily what belongs to a community, and find happiness, turn magnificently to the rescue of their own downtrodden. The old question--what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?--has been burned into Pittsburg humanity once again.

For several years the newspapers have carried stories about these successive scandals in Pittsburg, until people have in a measure become confused as to how they connect, whether all are really parts of the same story. I doubt if the average man who reads the article in the morning paper has a clear grasp of what has been going on, and he can't discover it without hunting back through the files. Once we published an article by Owen Wister about the Capitol frauds in Pennsylvania, after the newspapers had been printing countless columns on the subject for months, and it was one of the most successful articles we have used, because of the way it crystallized and interpreted the whole occurrence.

A similar service is here suggested. Write the story of Pittsburg dramatically; crystallize the big exposures of the last few years through which bankers and politicians have been going to prison, culminating with the present crisis in the City Council; bring out the economic significance of these occurrences to Pittsburg, to the United States. Such an article will help all of us to see where we are "at," will help develop civic consciousness in New York, Chicago, San Francisco. It is immensely well worth doing.

I'm not dictating your article. What is written here is purely suggestive. You must tell what you see and find in your own way. You will, anyway. You know most of the facts. You are in touch with the balance. We'll help to get material. If you will, you can put up an article that the country will read. We'd like copy as soon as possible. Sincerely, J. O'H. COSGRAVE,

Editor.

Mr. Whitlock, replied, expressing willingness to handle the subject along the lines indicated, and asked for whatever assistance we could render him. William Hard, a member of our editorial force, had spent some time in Pittsburg, acquiring material for his "Woman's Invasion," and he recommended J. J. Nordman, a reporter of that city, as the best man to equip Mr. Whitlock with the historical details of the exposure. He would thus have immediately a succinct, up-to-date statement of the case for his use as a skeleton.

Mr. Nordman was willing to help, and soon after got into communication with Mr. Whitlock. Here is an account of his service, which was accompanied by a letter from District Attorney Blakeley, certifying to his reliability and knowledge of the facts.

May 10, 1910. HON. BRAND WHITLOCK, Toledo, Ohio. Dear Sir:

Mr. Cosgrave has asked me to forward you matter bearing on the Pittsburg graft expose and such clippings as I may have.

I shall weave the facts together with no effort towards literary form, but rather in letter form, and present it to you not later than Monday next.

Enclosed please find what I have termed a "Retrospect," being a review of the political conditions leading to and making possible the present expose.

Such clippings as I have will be forwarded with matter. I enclose letter from Mr. Blakeley.

Very respectfully, J. JEROME NORDMAN.

After that we waited, rather impatiently, it must be confessed, for Whitlock's manuscript. After the passage of other admonitory letters and telegrams, we received the following letter. We print it "instead of an article." In our opinion, it is an extraordinarily valuable summary of the whole subject of municipal misrule. It goes far and beyond Pittsburg, and deep into economic, social, and national conditions of which that city is but an instance and an illustration. And, moreover, it sets forth just how such an article, could we find the right man to do it, should be written. Here it is:

Executive Offices THE CITY OF TOLEDO 3 June, 1910. JOHN O'HARA COSGRAVE, Esquire,Editor EVERYBODY'S MAGAZINE. DEAR MR. COSGRAVE:

The Pittsburg story is big, too big and too important and too significant to do at second hand. I have had a valuable correspondence with Mr. Nordman, and he has most kindly put his information, and in clear form, at my disposal. He has sent me his scrapbook of newspaper clippings, and he has written me at length and in detail of the various exposures and prosecutions. I have made inquiries, too, from friends, and I have been thinking over the story that you propose. But it won't go, and I have concluded that it ought not to go in that form; and that is the only form in which it is possible for me now to tell it.

I find just what I expected to find, or I find the familiar symptoms of what I expected to find. The intelligent answers to the several questions I put to Mr. Nordman after our first few letters are exactly what I expected them to be. One city is all cities; and all exhibit the same effects, proceeding from the same causes. Look about you, anywhere, and if you see graft, and bribery, and corruption, you'll find a bi-partisan machine controlling nominations and elections to municipal offices, and representing the few who consider themselves privileged to exploit the people by means of franchises in public utilities, etc. It's as easy as it is for a physician to tell what ails a sallow and emaciated Southern "cracker" who shivers with chills one day, and burns up with fever the next.

And so, in Pittsburg, I found the usual Republican machine with its big boss, the usual Democratic machine and its little boss, and the two, as usual, working together, the Democratic boss and his tools rewarded by a few small offices on "bi-partisan" boards, and the like; then the street railway system and other public utility corporations which these bosses represent, and for which they procure franchises. And after this, the "better element," the "eminently respectable" citizens, supporting this combination, enjoying the fruits of its labor, and influencing the business interests of the city in the way that gives such perfect exemplification of the evils of class government in our cities--the same, old, sordid story.

The revelations, as they are called--though by this time they should have ceased to be revelations, and have become "recognitions" in this country--made by the newspaper clippings before me are the expected indications of the deeper, underlying causes. The superficial observer sees in them merely a corrupt council; and, from the fact that councilmen have taken bribes, he makes the daring deduction that some one gave them the bribes; he sees that councilmen have been grafting, and then is naively astonished by the revelation that some business men higher up, although not very much higher up, have been caught and publicly disgraced. He sees, too, a brave and fearless prosecutor who is sending these men to prison; and there are the usual predictions that out of all this there is to come to Pittsburg "good" government--that is, government by honest men, to be aided, perhaps, by the adoption of the commission plan. That is to say, we have here the subject only in its personal aspect, and not in its institutional, sociological, economic aspect.

THE SAME OLD STORY OF GRAFT

Now, to be frank, the story of the grafting doesn't interest me much, though it is as saddening and depressing as ever; and I can't work up enough enthusiasm for that feature of it to write anything that would be worth your while to print, or worth anybody's while to read. Toward the subject I feel the same apathy that was felt toward the ordinary newspaper account of some casualty by Thoreau, who would not read, as you will remember, the accounts--for example--of crimes and accidents, because, having once grasped the principle, he felt it unnecessary to multiply, indefinitely, instances of that principle. The story of Pittsburg, so far as it has been related to me, is merely the old, squalid story of municipal graft. I have the names and the dates in an orderly and logical way--who were sent to the penitentiary, and when, and for what particular crime, and what the judge said in pronouncing sentence, etc. All of this has been told over and over and over again in the newspapers and magazines during the last few years; the only difference lies in the names and the dates and the place. Indeed, Pittsburg's story in this respect is hardly as interesting as the old stories--it is, if anything, more commonplace, more squalid.

But behind all this, there is, of course, a story, and a big one, as you unerringly divined. Reading between the lines of the dry recital of facts with which I have been provided, and peering a little way behind the scenes, I come, I think, upon the real story, the one that some one should write, the one that some one should print.

The first chapter, perhaps, is the story of the old political machines in Pittsburg, and of that interesting, and--in certain elemental, human senses--strong personality, Chris Magee, the boss--who has a monument.

Then, there is another personality, of a different sort, in Blakeley, the district attorney. My accounts are meager and bald, and yet I catch glimpses of a striking personality. This district attorney, I should imagine, is a man with the best ideals of the legal profession, honest, capable, sincere, and unafraid; a man, withal, who knows life and politics and can play the game without being soiled in its many contacts. What draws me to him, even at this distance, is that he seems to have little of the Puritan in him, as there is too apt to be in prosecutors who convict, and push their victims within prison doors. And he is another chapter of the story. But I don't know Blakeley; I can't describe him, I can't interpret him, and I haven't the time nor the opportunity just now to become acquainted with him.

Then there is the story of the organization of the Civic League, or whatever they call it, and especially the story of its operations. These good citizens, it seems, hired a detective to come and run their men down for them. To me the private detective is not the most inspiring and heroic figure on our modern scene; but that is neither here nor there. One of these detectives evidently has not only ability but versatility, and in an interesting manner combines the occupation of a detective with the profession of an evangelist. It was not, however, he who worked the old panel game--much as a black paramour might work it down in the Tenderloin--on certain councilmen, led them into a trap, and then exposed them--an achievement in confused morals that has not been permitted to go unapplauded. There are those, of course, in every city who could think fondly and smugly of themselves as doing, in this way, preeminently the will of God; and such deeds not infrequently make men self-righteous.

But, of course, I may be mistaken about the present application of this generalization, and, as I should like to be just, or, what is better, to be charitable, I should hesitate, on such unsupported conclusions, to write it down for the public eye. There are, of course, those who with logic can justify the larger end by the smaller means, and thus excuse certain deviations from the straight line of the moral ideal, and thereby hold one back from the temptation to divide his moral indignation about equally between pursuer and pursued. But, if he claimed one's sympathy for the pursuers, he could not prevent one's pity from going to the ruined councilmen.

THE SHOCK TO CARNEGIE

But beyond all this--and here I think I touch on the real story--there is the peculiar temper and tendency of Pittsburg. Pittsburg is an artistic center; fortunes have been lavished in endowing schools and universities and palaces for art, on symphonies and oratorios. All the expressions of a new, ruling plutocracy are easily discernible here, as in all such epochs of society recorded in history; just, for instance, as Ferrero describes them in the last phases of the Roman Republic. And when Carnegie returns, he sheds tears and wrings his hands because of the corruption that has been exposed, and he fails, as many in Pittsburg seem to fail, to note the necessary, if subtle, relation that must exist between all this corruption and debauchery between all this art and music, and--shall I say?--the tariff on steel.

This, however, isn't all; though this is part. Pittsburg is a moral town; the most moral, in the conventional sense, in all America. She won't even allow the kids to play baseball on a back lot on Sunday. A woman, an old friend of mine who lives in Pittsburg, said: "I think it very unfortunate that the Survey was published. It overlooks Pittsburg's good points. For instance, Pittsburg has more churches than any city of its size in America. More people of our class go to church than in any place I ever saw; more money is given to charity. People just pour out of their houses and into the churches on Sunday morning." She was quite serious--and she expressed Pittsburg, or the ruling class of Pittsburg, exactly.

Now I don't mean to say that Pittsburg is especially hypocritical; but she does seem to be pharisaical. The article about Pittsburg should find its beginnings, perhaps, away back in the days of scholasticism, and come down through the moss hags of Scotland; and its title should be "Pious Pittsburg," or something like that. Written properly--if I am right--it would be an eloquent exposition of phariseeism at its apotheosis.

THE REAL STORY OF PITTSBURG

Now I can't write this, because I haven't the evidence to prove what I see, or think I see. All I have is the mere outline--and the outline applies, as I have said, to most cities. What one should have is the color, the detail, the thousand and one little things in the way of personality--you know what I mean; all that which is necessary to "lend artistic verisimilitude to an otherwise bald and unconvincing narrative." (I wish I were in New York to-night! I'd go to the Casino and see the revival of "The Mikado.") The Pittsburg story can't be written, and it should not be written, without this; and to do it properly one would have to spend much time in Pittsburg and become saturated with the atmosphere of the place; and when he emerged, if he ever did emerge, he would be ready to undertake this rather stupendous study in psychology. I do not feel at all equipped for this task, and no amount of material without the personal contact could equip me for this service. With my material, I could only write the old and squalid story of a rather commonplace exposure of municipal grafting, and that wouldn't be worth while.

The story of Pittsburg would be all that the story of any city is--as I have indicated: the bi-partisan machine, the public service corporation, etc.--but it would be more. It would illustrate the curious effects of long acceptance of cold, intellectual theories in place of religion, and how this develops the ability to separate morals and manners; how one's theology needn't interfere with one's religion, and all that. It would be the story of the union of politics and business; and the trail would lead up to those proud and insolent aristocracies that are founded on the purchase of the privilege of making the laws, and down to those stews of horror where they pay for the privilege of breaking the laws. It would be the story of Chris Magee, the good-natured, human boss; of Blakeley, the upright prosecutor; of the methods of hired detectives and the corruption of officialdom. Pittsburg has riches, art, organized charity, and piety; but she lacks wealth, beauty, social justice, and religion. And sending the "bad" to prison, and electing the "good" to office, and changing the paper charters of the city, are not going to work any real reform. They think they'll get "good government" and "civic righteousness," and then their problems will be solved. This is what they propose to do; this is all they tell us now, and I can't write a story on that. The story would be as futile as little legal reforms.

It is, however, consoling and inspiring to believe--yes, to know--that there are in Pittsburg--as in all cities--hundreds of thousands of decent, virtuous, wholesome, toiling people; that these make up by far the larger part of the population, too, and that they will save Pittsburg, and make her as good as she is great. It is a fact stimulating to the imagination and encouraging to the soul that, in all these stores and shops and mills, there are hard-working, modest, unknown thousands who are pure and loyal, who are humanity's hope; that even the most stunted and abused figures out of the Survey give more promise than that class which rides upon their backs and devours them as it rides.

Good government, efficient government, if by those phrases is meant, as is usually meant, government by the "good"--whoever they may be!--and the efficient, will not do; it will avail nothing to Pittsburg or to any city, to substitute for grafters, great or petty, personally honest men who will legally give away franchises for nothing, instead of bartering them illegally for big bribes. Pittsburg can't be saved by an aristocracy of the better element, she can be saved only by democracy--with a very little "d." And she will be saved that way some day, never fear, though not until all the other cities are similarly saved.

I shall await with interest what you think of my suggestions.

Your ever sincere friend,
BRAND WHITLOCK.

***************************************************************** Vol. XXIII No.2 AUGUST 1910

THE WOMEN OF TO-MORROW {page 215-226 part 1.}

By WILLIAM HARD

EDITOR'S NOTE: It is commonly supposed that only the women of poverty are affected by modern industrial conditions. On the contrary, modern industrial conditions are having their greatest influence among the women who, before marriage, enjoy wide educational opportunities, and who, after marriage, enjoy the blessing of partial leisure. It is among these women that economic developments are producing the profoundest changes in habit of life and in character of mind. Mr Hard, who will be remembered by all readers of the "Woman's Invasion," has spent two years in the diligent investigation of this subject, and has acquired an authoritative knowledge of it.

EVERY Jack has his Jill." It is a tender twilight thought, and it more or less settles Jill.

When the Census Man was at work in 1900, however, he went about and counted 2,260,000 American women who were more than twenty-five years old and who were still unmarried.

It is getting worse (or better) with every passing decade, and out of it is emerging a new ideal of education for women, an ideal which seems certain to penetrate the whole educational system of the United States, all the way from the elementary schools to the universities.

The Census Man groups us into age periods. The period from twenty-five to twenty-nine is the most important matrimonially because it is the one in which most of us get pretty well fixed into our life work. Out of every 1,000 women in that period, in the year 1890, the Census Man found 254 who were still unmarried. In 1900, only ten years later, he found 275.

There is not so much processional as recessional about marriage at present. In navigating the stormy waters of life in the realistic pages of the census reports, it is not till we reach the comparatively serene, landlocked years from forty-five to fifty-four that we find ourselves in an age-period in which the number of single women has been reduced to less than ten per cent. of the total. The rebound from this fact hits education hard. As marriage recedes, and as the period of gainful work before marriage lengthens, the need of real technical preparation for that gainful work becomes steadily more urgent, and the United States moves steadily onward into an era of trained women as well as trained men.

In Boston, at that big new college called Simmons--the first of its kind in the United States--a regular four-year college of which the aim is to send out every graduate technically trained to earn her living in a certain specific occupation, there were enrolled last year, besides some five hundred undergraduate women, some eighty other women who had already earned their bachelor's degrees at other colleges, such as Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, Smith, Vassar, Radcliffe, Leland Stanford, and the University of Montana.

These eighty women, after eight years in elementary schools, four years in high school, and four years in college, were taking one year more in technical school in order to be--what? Not doctors or lawyers or architects. Not anything in the "learned" professions. But to be "social workers" in settlements or for charity societies, to be librarians, to be stenographers and secretaries.

The Bachelor of Arts from Vassar who is going to be a stenographer, and who is taking her year of graduate study at Simmons, will go to work at the end of the year and then, six months later, if she has made good, will get from Simmons the degree of Bachelor of Science. At that point in her life she will have two degrees and seventeen years of schooling behind her. A big background. But we are beginning to do some training for almost everything.

Did you ever see a school of salesmanship for department-store women employees? You can see one at the Women's Educational and Industrial Union in Boston. Under the guidance of Mrs. Lucinda W. Prince, the big department stores of Boston have come to think enough of this school to send girls to it every morning and to pay them full wages while they take a three months' course.

If you will attend any of the classes, in arithmetic, in textiles, in hygiene, in color and design, in demonstration sales, in business forms, you will get not only a new view of the art of selling goods over the counter but a new vision of a big principle in education.

In the class on color, for instance, you will at first be puzzled by the vivid interest taken by the pupils in the theory of it. You have never before observed in any classroom so intimate a concern about rainbows, prisms, spectra, and the scientific sources of aesthetic effects. Your mind runs back to your college days and returns almost alarmed to this unacademic display of genuine, spontaneous, unanimous enthusiasm toward a classroom study of a theoretical subject. At last the reason for it works into your mind. These girls are engaged in the practice of color every afternoon, over hats, ribbons, waists, gloves, costumes. When you begin once to study a subject which reaches practice in your life, you cannot stop with practice. A law of your mind carries you on to the philosophy of it.

Right there you see the reason why trade training, broadly contrived, broadens not only technique but soul, trains not only to earn but to live. "Refined selling," some of the girls call the salesmanship which they learn in Mrs. Prince's class. They have perceived, to some extent, the relation between the arts and sciences on the one hand and their daily work on the other.

To a much greater extent has this relation been perceived by the young woman who has taken the full four-year course in, say, "Secretarial Studies" in Simmons and who, throughout her English, her German, her French, her Sociology, and her History, as well as throughout her Typewriting, her Shorthand, and her Commercial Law, has necessarily kept in mind, irradiating every subject, the light it may throw on the specific work she is to do.

"Ah! There, precisely, is the danger. Every Jack should have his Jill; but if every Jill has her job, why, there again the wedding day goes receding some more into the future. Let them stop all this foolishness and get married, as their grandparents did!"

Poor Jack! Poor Jill! They get lectured at all the time about the postponement of marriage, and they can no more control it than they can control the size of the city of New York. Theoretically, everybody on Manhattan Island could get up and go away and leave the island vacant. Actually, it can't and won't be done. Theoretically, we should all of us get married young. We fall in love young enough. But, actually, we can't get married young, and don't. The reasons are given later. Meanwhile, just notice, and just ponder, the following facts.

It was in the United States as a whole that the Census Man found 275 out of every 1,000 women in the twenty-five-to-twenty-nine age--period unmarried. But the United States consists of developed and undeveloped regions. The cities are the high points of development. Look at the cities:

In Chicago, out of every 1,000 women in the age period from twenty-five to twenty-nine, there were 314 who were unmarried. In Denver there were 331. In Manhattan and the Bronx there were 356. In Minneapolis there were 369. In Philadelphia there were 387.

Southern New England, however, is the most industrially developed part of the United States, the part in which social conditions like those of the older countries of the world are most nearly reached.

In Fall River, out of every 1,000 women in the twenty-five-to-twenty-nine period, the unmarried were 391. In New Haven they were 393. In Boston they were 452.

In view of such facts, how can anybody object to the steps which have been taken recently toward giving the women in the manufacturing trades, as well as the women in the commercial trades, some little preparation for the work in which they are likely to spend so many years?

In the Manhattan Trade School for Girls, in the last eighteen months of record, the enrollment was 1,169. More and more the girls in this school are willing to stay in it for a full year. They have finished at least five grades of the public school, and they are now learning to be milliners, to be dressmakers, to be operators of electric-power machines, to be workers in paste and glue in such occupations as candle-shade-making, to be workers with brush and pencil in furnishing the manufacturing trades with designs.

It is not only a matter of learning to do one particular thing in one particular department in one particular trade. That they could learn in a factory. It is a matter of getting some understanding of a whole trade, or getting some kind of a view of how the world is run. Nobody wants to make people into machines. The object of a good trade school is precisely the reverse. It is the common school which makes people into machines, when it sends them directly from books, which do not explain the working world, out into that world to become uncomprehending appendages to minute processes in infinitely subdivided manufacturing organizations.

A good trade school, besides teaching the technique of the machine, covers what Mrs. Woolman, the director of the Manhattan School, in her wonderful report of last year called the "middle ground" between general academic preparatory work on the one hand and practical trade training on the other. In this "middle ground" the pupil takes simple courses in, for instance, "Civics" and "Industries."

"Nothing to it," says an irritated manufacturer. "Nothing to it at all! I can't get a good office boy any more. I can't get anybody, boy or girl, who wants to do anything but just hold down a job and grab a pay-envelope. Too much schooling! Those inventors and pioneers who came out of New England and made this country from a hunting-ground into an empire--they didn't have all this monkey-business in technical schools and trade schools. They just went to work. That's all. I say send 'em to work young and let 'em sweat. That's what makes men and women."

My dear sir, those early New Englanders were in trade schools from the time they began to crawl on the floor among their mothers' looms and spinning-wheels. There was hardly a home in early New England that didn't give a large number of technical courses in which men and women were always teaching by doing, and the boys and girls were always learning by imitating.

The facts about this are so simple and so familiar that we don't stop to think of their meaning. When in the spring the wood-ashes from the winter fires were poured into the lye-barrel, and water was poured in with them, and the lye began to trickle out from the bottom of the barrel, and the winter's savings of grease were brought out, and the grease and the lye were boiled together in the big kettle, and mother had finished making the family's supply of soap for another year, the children had taken not only a little lesson in industriousness, by helping to make the soap, but a little lesson in industry, too, by observing the technique and organization of the soap business from start to finish. A boy from that family, even if he never learned to read or write, might some day have some IDEAS about soap.

The curriculum of an old New England home, so far as presided over by the wife, may be incompletely suggested as follows:

(N. B. The reader will note the inappropriateness of congratulating the daughters of that home on their not wanting a job. They had it.)

VEGETABLES DEPARTMENT.

1. A course in Gardening.
"In March and in April, from morning to night,
In sowing and setting good housewives delight."

2. A course in Medicinal Herbs. Borage, fennel, wild tansy, wormwood, etc. Methods of distillation. Aqua composita, barberry conserve, electuaries, salves, and ointments. A most important course for every housewife.

"A speedy and a sovereign remedy,
The bitter wormwood, sage and
marigold."--FLETCHER: "The Faithful Shepherdess."

3. A course in Pickling. In this course pretty nearly everything will be pickled, down to nasturtium-buds and radish-pods.

PACKING-HOUSE DEPARTMENT.

1. A course in Salting Meat in the "powdering" tub.

2. A course in Smoking Hams and Bacons.

3. A course in Pickling Pig's feet and Ears.

4. A course in Headcheese and Sausages.

LIQUOR DEPARTMENT.

1. A course in Beer. The making of wort out of barley. The making of harm out of hops. The fermenting of the two together in barrels.

(This course is not so much given now in New England, but it is an immemorial heritage of the female sex. Gervayse Markham, in his standard book, "Instructions to a Good Housewife," says about beer: "It is the work and care of woman, for it is a house-work. The man ought only to bring in the grain.")

2. A course in Light Drinks, such as Elderberry Wine.

CREAMERY DEPARTMENT.

1. A course in Making Butter.

2. A course in Making Cheese, Curdling, breaking curds in basket, shaping in cheese press, turning and rubbing cheese on cheese ladder.

CLEANING DEPARTMENT

1. A course in Soapmaking.

2. A course in Making Brooms out of Guinea-wheat Straw.

3. A course in Starch making.

4. A course in Cleaning.

(This last course is very simple. Having manufactured the things to wash and sweep with, the mere washing and sweeping won't take long.)

FRUIT DEPARTMENT.

1. A course in Preserving--everything that can't be pickled.

BREAKFAST FOOD DEPARTMENT.

1. A course in Mush and forty kinds of Bread--Rhineinjun (sometimes called Rye and Indian), bun, bannock, jannock, rusk, etc., etc.

LIGHTING DEPARTMENT.

1. A course in Dips. The melting of tallow or bayberries. The twisting of wicks. The attaching of wicks to rods. The dipping of them into the melted mass in the kettle. Patience in keeping on dipping them.

(Pupils taking this course are required to report each morning at five o'clock.)

2. A course in Wax Candles. The use of molds.