Part 6 (1/2)
A few years ago, we turned to sanitary day nurseries, and to pasteurized milk and other prepared baby foods, as the solution for neglected or unhygienic feeding. To-day we know that even a dirty and ill-conditioned mother secretes better milk for her baby than can be prepared in any laboratory. We must wash the mother and feed her the milk, and then let her give it to her baby, instinct with her own life.
It is quite possible that our recent talk of ignorant mother love and of the necessary subst.i.tution of sanitary nurseries, canned care and pre-digested affection must all go the same way. We shall probably get our best results by cleaning up the home, enlightening the mother, and then letting her love her child into the full possession of its human qualities.
Economically, too, at least with factory workers, it is questionable if their wages will support sanitary day-nurseries, with intelligent nurses for small groups of children, and at the same time pay some one to cook and scrub at home. If the mother must still cook and care for her house, in addition to her factory work, the burden is too great; and if money for nurses must come from the state, or from charity, then we all know the danger of such subsidies to industry, in its effect on wages.
Surely the ideal toward which we must work is for the mother, during the period when she is bearing and rearing children, to be supported by the father of her children. Let her do the work meantime which will best care for her children, and at the same time conserve and strengthen her powers for the third period of her life.
This period, from fifty to seventy-five years, is now more shamefully wasted than any other of our national resources. If one attends a State federation of women's clubs one will find nearly every delegate of this age. They are women of mature understanding and of ripe judgment, still possessing abundant health and strength, and where relieved by economic conditions from the necessity of manual work, they have to live such irregular and uncertain relations to life as can be maintained by mothers-in-law, grandmothers, club secretaries, and presidents of town improvement societies. Remove all restrictions on woman's activity, and these strong matrons would vitalize our schools, give us decent munic.i.p.al housekeeping, supervise the conditions under which girls and women work in shops and factories, and do much to clean up our politics.
Debarred from direct power as they are, they are still making us decent in spite of ourselves.
For the future, then, it seems that we must accept working women in every path of life. We must remove all disabilities under which they labor, and at the same time protect them by special legislation as future wives and mothers. All girls must master some line of self-supporting work; and, except in the cases of those who have very special tastes and gifts, they should select work which can be interrupted, without too great loss, by some years of motherhood. During this time, the mother must be supported so that she can largely care for her own child, though she must also maintain outside interests through work, which will keep her in touch with the moving current of her time.
Industries must be humanized and made fit for women. The last third of a woman's life must be freed from legal limitations and popular prejudices, so that we may secure these best years of her life for private and public service. And meantime, it is well to remember that every step we take in making this a fit world for woman to work in, makes it a fit world for her father, her brothers, her lover and her husband to work beside her.
VII
The Meaning of Political Life
It is a well-known fact that when words have been long and vigorously used they gather within and around themselves varied meanings. Some parts of these meanings are remnants of historic, and possibly outworn, experience; other parts are the result of more or less deliberate perversion under the stress of deep feelings aroused by opposition and fighting. This is especially the fate of words in any way a.s.sociated with politics. Think how battered and useless for purposes of ordinary discussion ”democrat” and ”republican” or ”socialist” have become in America!
In the struggle of the last fifty years over woman's suffrage, most of the words involved have undergone such transformations; and so many prejudices have become a.s.sociated with them, that no one can think or speak clearly and fairly to-day in these terms. ”Woman's Rights,”
”enfranchis.e.m.e.nt,” ”Votes for Women,” ”suffragette,” ”polls,” ”ballot,”
”political issues,” and many other words, have gone through this destructive process.
To read some of the most popular literature on this subject one might imagine that women had all deserted home and fireside, babies and baking, and were lined up, struggling fiercely to deposit certain printed slips, called votes or ballots, dealing with esoteric mysteries understood only by men like Mr. Bryan or Mr. Roosevelt, in ballot-boxes.
These receptacles are supposed to be behind, or very near, lawless saloons, where gangs of hoodlums are waiting to a.s.sault the bearers of these mysterious tickets. Thus Miss Seawell writes in the _Atlantic Monthly_ for September, 1910: ”The trouble would begin with the mere attempt of women to deposit their ballots. A dozen ruffians at a single polling-place would prevent a single woman from depositing a single vote. There can be no doubt that this means would be used by the rougher element and that the polls would become a scene of preordained riot and disorder.” Of course, such statements could not appear in a leading magazine, in a land where women have been voting quietly for many years, were it not for the perversity of the words which the author tries to use, but which really use her. In other periodicals, equally respectable, one learns that women, goaded on by the intolerable political tyranny of men, have agreed as one soul to advance, with ballots in their hands, and sweep graft and greed, drink and all other human wrongs, into the sea of oblivion forever. Of course, this is nonsense, or worse, and in this chapter I should like to turn away from this warfare, leaving even the battered and prejudiced-soaked words alone, as much as may be possible, and simply ask: What is political life, not as defined in books, but as actually lived by a self-respecting farmer or merchant of our acquaintance? What qualities does political life presuppose in a partic.i.p.ant? How does its use affect him? What does it enable him to accomplish? What is the relation of a woman--not some militant or uns.e.xed ogre, nor a female breeding animal in a harem, but our own sisters, wives and daughters as they really are--what is their relation to this mysterious process?
If one approaches the political life of our modern democracies in this simple spirit of inquiry it would seem that the first requisite for partic.i.p.ation is the ability to form sound judgments concerning political matters; and all matters are now becoming political which affect the welfare of the community. Certainly the citizen cannot devise political machinery nor select candidates to work such machinery, much less ”cast a ballot,” until he knows what he wants done. What are some of the questions, then, on which he must form judgments?
First of all, he must be prepared to think intelligently about protecting his life and property. He must know something of the danger of foreign invasion, of the consequent need of a navy and standing army.
He must make up his mind whether it is necessary to spend $123,000,000 yearly on an American navy and $156,000,000 on an American army, as we are at present doing, that we may be ready to fight England, Germany or j.a.pan if at any time we want to do so. He must ask himself whether this money might not better be used in fighting ignorance, crime, poverty and disease.
The would-be citizen must also think about protecting himself from a.s.sault as he walks about the streets; about protecting his house from thieves as he lies asleep at night. He must have thought about the careless use of cars, automobiles, firearms and explosives in general.
He must consider the danger from fires, contagion, diseases, mobs; he must think intelligently about contaminated water and impure foods. All these things are necessary for the physical well-being of the community life. Of course, if either man or woman cannot think intelligently about these things, he ought not to have control of them; he should leave such matters to those who can think of them.
In the second place, the would-be citizen must have fairly sound judgments on questions of raising and spending necessary revenue. What are the effects of direct and indirect taxation? Would a heavy tax on land force unused lands, including mines and waterways, into use? Should a man with a cash income of $50,000 a year pay more to support government than one with a cash income of $500? What are the objections to an income tax? How does it work in England, where it has been fairly tried? Should a great corporation pay taxes in proportion to its wealth, and in places where the wealth is protected by the law? If so, how can it be reached? Should churches, museums, libraries and schools be taxed; if not, why not? Should taxes be laid on flour, meat and eggs, on woolen cloth, on silks, velvets, ostrich plumes and diamonds? Should taxes be laid on whiskey, wines, tobacco, cigars and race-tracks? Should taxes be devised, or continued, to protect such infant industries as now handle our kerosene oil, meat, sugar and steel? Surely no one who cannot form independent judgments on these matters should presume to direct them through voting.
But not only must a nation raise revenue in the wisest and most equitable manner possible, and spend it effectively and economically, but it must also care for its present possessions. So the would-be citizen must know about the wealth in which he wants to share. What do the national, State and munic.i.p.al governments own? How should the vast domains of land, the onetime inexhaustible forests, the mines of coal and metal, the waterways and water-powers, the special privileges and franchises belonging to the people be used? Should they be thrown away, gambled away, given away as favors, rented, sold, or handled directly by the people? On what terms or under what guarantees should they be turned over to individuals or companies, if this is to be done? Those who cannot form judgments on these matters should not be entrusted with such vast responsibility, be they men or women.
Questions of our foreign relations must also occupy the thought of the citizen. Are foreign entanglements necessary or desirable? If so, with what European or Asiatic nations should we seek to strengthen our friends.h.i.+p? Are our interests nearly identical with those of England? If we formed a close defensive alliance with her should we be thereby aiding universal peace as much as we might by maintaining more generally friendly relations with all European powers? Would an alliance with England probably draw us into her troubles, if she has any, in Egypt or India? How would such an alliance affect our relation with England's present ally, j.a.pan? Are we fitted by the genius of our inst.i.tutions and by our experience to handle a foreign empire? If not, what should we do with the Philippines?
So, too, those who are to direct the destinies of the country must think out what our relations are to be with Latin America. In the past some statesman, a Richelieu or a Bismarck, had a policy and led his nation to it by devious paths of indirection. But now that each citizen is a king, he must have a policy for his realm. Are our republican neighbors to the south to be increasingly recognized as under our protection and direction? If so, how are we to maintain the peace and secure payment of their foreign debts? All these problems are bound up with the management of the Panama Ca.n.a.l. They confront us in different forms in connection with immigration, especially of Asiatics.
Our inst.i.tutional life must also be regulated by the citizens, and so they must have judgments about each of its details. They must know what they think about the family, forms of legal marriage and divorce, and the care of children when the family fails. The Church must be considered and protected; possibly it should be encouraged; and possibly its unwarranted a.s.sumption should sometimes be checked. Schools must be founded, supported, directed. Art galleries, museums and clubs must be chartered, and then controlled; and so must all the other inst.i.tutions of our modern society. The would-be citizen must be able to think about all this work.
Industries, on which our individual and collective well-being depend, must be encouraged by special favors, limited to the public good, protected from violence, inspected in the interest of employees. Hours must be regulated, disputes settled, conditions of labor and safety secured. Children should be protected against employers' greed; and working women must receive special consideration, if the race of strong men is to continue. Here again the citizen must have judgments, or the power to make judgments, as new needs arise.
Then, too, there is a tradition of government, established by the fathers and modified by experience, which should be understood by the citizens. It recognizes certain rights as being reserved by the individual States, and others as belonging to the national government.
The would-be citizen should be acquainted with this tradition so that he can determine how far it is desirable to adopt a new nationalism. He will have to pa.s.s judgment on the control of interstate commerce, national or State control of public lands, national divorce and liquor laws, national food inspection, and other practical subjects which may destroy the older balance of power so jealously guarded by our earlier statesmen. The citizen must make up his mind if this is desirable.