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You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: An American Idyll + The Life of Carleton H. Parker + +Author: Cornelia Stratton Parker + +Release Date: February 7, 2005 [EBook #14943] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN IDYLL *** + + + + +Produced by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/001.jpg" width="45%" alt="" +title="" /><br /> +<b>Carleton H. Parker</b> +<br /></div> +<h1>AN AMERICAN IDYLL</h1> +<div> +<h2>THE LIFE OF<br /> +CARLETON H. PARKER</h2> +</div> +<h4><i>By</i></h4> +<h3>CORNELIA STRATTON PARKER</h3> +<div class="figcenter"><img src="images/002.png" width="15%" alt="" +title="" /> +<br /></div> +<div class='center'>BOSTON<br /> +<br /> +THE ATLANTIC MONTHLY PRESS<br /> +<br /> +1919 +<br /> +<br /> +<br /></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class='blockquot'><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>The +poem on the opposite page is here</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>reprinted with the express +permission of</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Messrs. Charles Scribner's +Sons, publishers</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>of Robert Louis Stevenson's +Works.</i></span></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class='blockquot'><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Yet, O +stricken heart, remember, O remember,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;"><i>How of human days he lived the +better part.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>April came to bloom, and never +dim December</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;"><i>Breathed its killing chill +upon the head or heart.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Doomed to know not Winter, +only Spring, a being</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;"><i>Trod the flowery April +blithely for a while,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Took his fill of music, joy of +thought and seeing,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;"><i>Came and stayed and went, nor +ever ceased to smile.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Came and stayed and went, and +now when all is finished,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;"><i>You alone have crossed the +melancholy stream,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Yours the pang, but his, O +his, the undiminished,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;"><i>Undecaying gladness, +undeparted dream.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>All that life contains of +torture, toil, and treason,</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;"><i>Shame, dishonor, death, to him +were but a name.</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Here, a boy, he dwelt through +all the singing season</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 4.5em;"><i>And ere the day of sorrow +departed as he came.</i></span></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class='blockquot'><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Written +for our three children.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Dedicated to all those kindred +souls, friends of</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>Carl Parker whether they knew +him or not, who</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>are making the fight, without +bitterness but with</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>all the understanding, +patience, and enthusiasm</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>they possess, for a saner, +kindlier, and more joyous</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>world.</i></span><br /> +<br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>And to those especially who +love greatly along</i></span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;"><i>the way.</i></span></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<div class='center'><a href="#PREFACE"><b>PREFACE</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_I"><b>CHAPTER I</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_II"><b>CHAPTER II</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_III"><b>CHAPTER III</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IV"><b>CHAPTER IV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_V"><b>CHAPTER V</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VI"><b>CHAPTER VI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VII"><b>CHAPTER VII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_VIII"><b>CHAPTER VIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_IX"><b>CHAPTER IX</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_X"><b>CHAPTER X</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XI"><b>CHAPTER XI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XII"><b>CHAPTER XII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIII"><b>CHAPTER XIII</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XIV"><b>CHAPTER XIV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XV"><b>CHAPTER XV</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVI"><b>CHAPTER XVI</b></a><br /> +<a href="#CHAPTER_XVII"><b>CHAPTER XVII</b></a></div> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="PREFACE" id="PREFACE"></a>PREFACE</h2> +<p>It was a year ago to-day that Carl Parker died—March 17, +1918. His fortieth birthday would have come on March 31. His +friends, his students, were free to pay their tribute to him, both +in the press and in letters which I treasure. I alone of +all,—I who knew him best and loved him most,—had no way +to give some outlet to my soul; could see no chance to pay +<i>my</i> tribute.</p> +<p>One and another have written of what was and will be his +valuable service to economic thought and progress; of the effects +of his mediation of labor disputes, in the Northwest and throughout +the nation; and of his inestimable qualities as friend, comrade, +and teacher.</p> +<p>"He gave as a Federal mediator,"—so runs one estimate of +him,—"all his unparalleled knowledge and understanding of +labor and its point of view. That knowledge, that understanding he +gained, not by academic investigation, but by working in mines and +woods, in shops and on farms. He had the trust and confidence of +both sides in disputes between labor and capital; his services were +called in whenever trouble was brewing. . . . Thanks to him, +strikes were averted; war-work of the most vital importance, +threatened by misunderstandings and smouldering discontent, went +on."</p> +<p>But almost every one who has written for publication has told of +but one side of him, and there were such countless sides. Would it +then be so out of place if I, his wife, could write of all of him, +even to the manner of husband he was?</p> +<p>I have hesitated for some months to do this. He had not yet made +so truly national a name, perhaps, as to warrant any assumption +that such a work would be acceptable. Many of his close friends +have asked me to do just this, however; for they realize, as I do +so strongly, that his life was so big, so full, so potential, that, +even as the story of a man, it would be worth the reading.</p> +<p>And, at the risk of sharing intimacies that should be kept in +one's heart only, I long to have the world know something of the +life we led together.</p> +<p>An old friend wrote: "Dear, splendid Carl, the very embodiment +of life, energized and joyful to a degree I have never known. And +the thought of the separation of you two makes me turn cold. . . . +The world can never be the same to me with Carl out of it. I loved +his high spirit, his helpfulness, his humor, his adoration of you. +Knowing you and Carl, and seeing your life together, has been one +of the most perfect things in my life."</p> +<p>An Eastern professor, who had visited at our home from time to +time wrote: "You have lost one of the finest husbands I have ever +known. Ever since I have known the Parker family, I have considered +their home life as ideal. I had hoped that the too few hours I +spent in your home might be multiplied many times in coming years. +. . . I have never known a man more in love with a woman than Carl +was with you."</p> +<p>So I write of him for these reasons: because I must, to ease my +own pent-up feelings; because his life was so well worth writing +about; because so many friends have sent word to me: "Some day, +when you have the time, I hope you will sit down and write me about +Carl"—the newer friends asking especially about his earlier +years, the older friends wishing to know of his later interests, +and especially of the last months, and of—what I have written +to no one as yet—his death. I can answer them all this +way.</p> +<p>And, lastly, there is the most intimate reason of all. I want +our children to know about their father—not just his academic +worth, his public career, but the life he led from day to day. If I +live till they are old enough to understand, I, of course, can tell +them. If not, how are they to know? And so, in the last instance, +this is a document for them.</p> +<p><span style="margin-left: 23em;">C.S.P.</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">March 17, 1919</span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2>AN AMERICAN IDYLL</h2> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_I" id="CHAPTER_I"></a>CHAPTER I</h2> +<p>Such hosts of memories come tumbling in on me. More than fifteen +years ago, on September 3, 1903, I met Carl Parker. He had just +returned to college, two weeks late for the beginning of his Senior +year. There was much concern among his friends, for he had gone on +a two months' hunting-trip into the wilds of Idaho, and had planned +to return in time for college. I met him his first afternoon in +Berkeley. He was on the top of a step-ladder, helping put up an +awning for our sorority dance that evening, uttering his proverbial +joyous banter to any one who came along, be it the man with the +cakes, the sedate house-mother, fellow awning-hangers, or the girls +busying about.</p> +<p>Thus he was introduced to me—a Freshman of two weeks. He +called down gayly, "How do you do, young lady?" Within a week we +were fast friends, I looking up to him as a Freshman would to a +Senior, and a Senior seven years older than herself at that. Within +a month I remember deciding that, if ever I became engaged, I would +tell Carl Parker before I told any one else on earth!</p> +<p>After about two months, he called one evening with his pictures +of Idaho. Such a treat as my mountain-loving soul did have! I still +have the map he drew that night, with the trails and camping-places +marked. And I said, innocence itself, "<i>I'm</i> going to Idaho on +my honeymoon!" And he said, "I'm not going to marry till I find a +girl who wants to go to Idaho on her honeymoon!" Then we both +laughed.</p> +<p>But the deciding event in his eyes was when we planned our first +long walk in the Berkeley hills for a certain Saturday, November +22, and that morning it rained. One of the tenets I was brought up +on by my father was that bad weather was <i>never</i> an excuse for +postponing anything; so I took it for granted that we would start +on our walk as planned.</p> +<p>Carl telephoned anon and said, "Of course the walk is off."</p> +<p>"But why?" I asked.</p> +<p>"The rain!" he answered.</p> +<p>"As if that makes any difference!"</p> +<p>At which he gasped a little and said all right, he'd be around +in a minute; which he was, in his Idaho outfit, the lunch he had +suggested being entirely responsible for bulging one pocket. Off we +started in the rain, and such a day as we had! We climbed Grizzly +Peak,—only we did not know it for the fog and rain,—and +just over the summit, in the shelter of a very drippy oak tree, we +sat down for lunch. A fairly sanctified expression came over Carl's +face as he drew forth a rather damp and frayed-looking +paper-bag—as a king might look who uncovered the chest of his +most precious court jewels before a courtier deemed worthy of that +honor. And before my puzzled and somewhat doubtful eyes he spread +his treasure—jerked bear-meat, nothing but jerked bear-meat. +I never had seen jerked anything, let alone tasted it. I was used +to the conventional picnic sandwiches done up in waxed paper, plus +a stuffed egg, fruit, and cake. I was ready for a lunch after the +conservative pattern, and here I gazed upon a mess of most +unappetizing-looking, wrinkled, shrunken, jerked bear-meat, the +rain dropping down on it through the oak tree.</p> +<p>I would have gasped if I had not caught the look of awe and +reverence on Carl's face as he gazed eagerly, and with what +respect, on his offering. I merely took a hunk of what was +supplied, set my teeth into it, and pulled. It was salty, very; it +looked queer, tasted queer, <i>was</i> queer. Yet that lunch! We +walked farther, sat now and then under other drippy trees, and at +last decided that we must slide home, by that time soaked to the +skin, and I minus the heel to one shoe.</p> +<p>I had just got myself out of the bath and into dry clothes when +the telephone rang. It was Carl. Could he come over to the house +and spend the rest of the afternoon? It was then about four-thirty. +He came, and from then on things were +decidedly—different.</p> +<p>How I should love to go into the details of that Freshman year +of mine! I am happier right now writing about it than I have been +in six months. I shall not go into detail—only to say that +the night of the Junior Prom of my Freshman year Carl Parker asked +me to marry him, and two days later, up again in our hills, I said +that I would. To think of that now—to think of waiting two +whole days to decide whether I would marry Carl Parker or not!! And +for fourteen years from the day I met him, there was never one +small moment of misunderstanding, one day that was not +happiness—except when we were parted. Perhaps there are +people who would consider it stupid, boresome, to live in such +peace as that. All I can answer is that it was <i>not</i> stupid, +it was <i>not</i> boresome—oh, how far from it! In fact, in +those early days we took our vow that the one thing we would never +do was to let the world get commonplace for us; that the time +should never come when we would not be eager for the start of each +new day. The Kipling poem we loved the most, for it was the spirit +of both of us, was "The Long Trail." You know the last of +it:—</p> +<p><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">The Lord knows what we may +find, dear lass,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">And the Deuce knows what we may +do—</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">But we're back once more on the +old trail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">our own trail, the out +trail,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">We're down, hull down, on the +Long Trail—the</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 6em;">trail that is always +new!</span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_II" id="CHAPTER_II"></a>CHAPTER II</h2> +<p>After we decided to get married, and that as soon as ever we +could,—I being a Freshman at the ripe and mature age of, as +mentioned, just eighteen years, he a Senior, with no particular +prospects, not even sure as yet what field he would go +into,—we began discussing what we might do and where we might +go. Our main idea was to get as far away from everybody as we +could, and live the very fullest life we could, and at last we +decided on Persia. Why Persia? I cannot recall the steps now that +brought us to that conclusion. But I know that first Christmas I +sent Carl my picture in a frilled high-school graduation frock and +a silk Persian flag tucked behind it, and that flag remained always +the symbol for us that we would never let our lives get stale, +never lose the love of adventure, never "settle down," +intellectually at any rate.</p> +<p>Can you see my father's face that sunny March day,—Charter +Day it was,—when we told him we were engaged? (My father +being the conventional, traditional sort who had never let me have +a real "caller" even, lest I become interested in boys and think of +matrimony too young!) Carl Parker was the first male person who was +ever allowed at my home in the evening. He came seldom, since I was +living in Berkeley most of the time, and anyway, we much preferred +prowling all over our end of creation, servant-girl-and-policeman +fashion. Also, when I married, according to father it was to be +some one, preferably an attorney of parts, about to become a judge, +with a large bank account. Instead, at eighteen, I and this +almost-unknown-to-him Senior stood before him and said, "We are +going to be married," or words to that general effect. +And—here is where I want you to think of the expression on my +conservative father's face.</p> +<p>Fairly early in the conversation he found breath to say, "And +what, may I ask, are your prospects?"</p> +<p>"None, just at present."</p> +<p>"And where, may I ask, are you planning to begin this married +career you seem to contemplate?"</p> +<p>"In Persia."</p> +<p>Can you see my father? "<i>Persia</i>?"</p> +<p>"Yes, Persia."</p> +<p>"And what, for goodness' sake, are you two going to do in +<i>Persia</i>?"</p> +<p>"We don't know just yet, of course, but we'll find +something."</p> +<p>I can see my father's point of view now, though I am not sure +but that I shall prefer a son-in-law for our daughter who would +contemplate absolute uncertainty in Persia in preference to an +assured legal profession in Oakland, California. It was two years +before my father became at all sympathetic, and that condition was +far from enthusiastic. So it was a great joy to me to have him say, +a few months before his death, "You know, Cornelia, I want you to +understand that if I had had the world to pick from I'd have chosen +Carl Parker for your husband. Your marriage is a constant source of +satisfaction to me."</p> +<p>I saw Carl Parker lose his temper once, and once only. It was +that first year that we knew each other. Because there was such a +difference between his age and mine, the girls in my sorority house +refused to believe there could be anything serious about our going +together so much, and took great pains to assure me in private that +of course Carl meant nothing by his attentions,—to which I +agreed volubly,—and they scolded him in private because it +would spoil a Freshman to have a Senior so attentive. We always +compared notes later, and were much amused.</p> +<p>But words were one thing, actions another. Since there could be +nothing serious in our relationship, naturally there was no reason +why we should be left alone. If there was to be a rally or a +concert, the Senior sitting at the head of the dinner-table would +ask, "How many are going to-night with a man?" Hands. "How many of +the girls are going together?" Hands. Then, to me, "Are you going +with Carl?" A faint "Yes." "Then we'll all go along with you." Carl +stood it twice—twice he beheld this cavalcade bear away in +our wake; then he gritted his teeth and announced, "Never +again!"</p> +<p>The next college occasion was a rally at the Greek Theatre. +Again it was announced at the table that all the unescorted ones +would accompany Carl and me. I foresaw trouble. When I came +downstairs later, with my hat and coat on, there stood Carl, +surrounded by about six girls, all hastily buttoning their gloves, +his sister, who knew no more of the truth about Carl and me than +the others, being one of them. Never had I seen such a look on +Carl's face, and I never did again. His feet were spread apart, his +jaw was set, and he was glaring. When he saw me he said, "Come on!" +and we dashed for the door.</p> +<p>Sister Helen flew after us. "But Carl—the other +girls!"</p> +<p>Carl stuck his head around the corner of the front door, called +defiantly, "<i>Damn</i> the other girls!" banged the door to, and +we fled. Never again were we molested.</p> +<p>Carl finished his Senior year, and a full year it was for him. +He was editor of the "Pelican," the University funny paper, and of +the "University of California Magazine," the most serious +publication on the campus outside the technical journals; he made +every "honor" organization there was to make (except the Phi Beta +Kappa); he and a fellow student wrote the successful Senior +Extravaganza; he was a reader in economics, and graduated with +honors. And he saw me every single day.</p> +<p>I feel like digressing here a moment, to assail that old +principle—which my father, along with countless others, held +so strongly—that a fellow who is really worth while ought to +know by his Junior year in college just what his life-work is to +be. A few with an early developed special aptitude do, but very +few. Carl entered college in August, 1896, in Engineering; but +after a term found that it had no further appeal for him. "But a +fellow ought to stick to a thing, whether he likes it or not!" If +one must be dogmatic, then I say, "A fellow should never work at +anything he does not like." One of the things in our case which +brought such constant criticism from relatives and friends was that +we changed around so much. Thank God we did! It took Carl Parker +until he was over thirty before he found just the work he loved the +most and in which his soul was content—university work. And +he was thirty-seven before he found just the phase of economic +study that fired him to his full enthusiasm—his loved field +of the application of psychology to economics. And some one would +have had him stick to engineering because he started in +engineering!</p> +<p>He hurt his knee broad-jumping in his Freshman year at college, +and finally had to leave, going to Phoenix, Arizona, and then back +to the Parker ranch at Vacaville for the better part of a year. The +family was away during that time, and Carl ran the place alone. He +returned to college in August, 1898, this time taking up mining. +After a year's study in mining he wanted the practical side. In the +summer of 1899 he worked underground in the Hidden Treasure Mine, +Placer county, California. In 1900 he left college again, going to +the gold and copper mines of Rossland, British Columbia. From +August, 1900, to May, 1901, he worked in four different mines. It +was with considerable feeling of pride that he always added, "I got +to be machine man before I quit."</p> +<p>It was at that time that he became a member of the Western +Federation of Miners—an historical fact which inimical +capitalists later endeavored to make use of from time to time to do +him harm. How I loved to listen by the hour to the stories of those +grilling days—up at four in the pitch-dark and snow, to crawl +to his job, with the blessing of a dear old Scotch landlady and a +"pastie"! He would tell our sons of tamping in the sticks of +dynamite, till their eyes bulged. The hundreds of times these last +six months I've wished I had in writing the stories of those +days—of all his days, from early Vacaville times on! +Sometimes it would be an old Vacaville crony who would appear, and +stories would fly of those boy times—of the exploits up Putah +Creek with Pee Wee Allen; of the prayer-meeting when Carl bet he +could out-pray the minister's son, and won; of the tediously +thought-out assaults upon an ancient hired man on the place, that +would fill a book and delight the heart of Tom Sawyer himself; and +how his mother used to sigh and add to it all, "If only he had +<i>ever</i> come home on time to his meals!" (And he has one son +just like him. Carl's brothers tell me: "Just give up trying to get +Jim home on time. Mamma tried every scheme a human could devise to +make Carl prompt for his meals, but nothing ever had the slightest +effect. Half an hour past dinner-time he'd still be five miles from +home.")</p> +<p>One article that recently appeared in a New York paper +began:—</p> +<p>"They say of him that when he was a small boy he displayed the +same tendencies that later on made him great in his chosen field. +His family possessed a distinct tendency toward conformity and +respectability, but Carl was a companion of every 'alley-bum' in +Vacaville. His respectable friends never won him away from his +insatiable interest in the under-dog. They now know it makes valid +his claim to achievement."</p> +<p>After the British Columbia mining days, he took what money he +had saved, and left for Idaho, where he was to meet his chum, Hal +Bradley, for his first Idaho trip—a dream of theirs for +years. The Idaho stories he could tell—oh, why can I not +remember them word for word? I have seen him hold a roomful of +students in Berlin absolutely spellbound over those +adventures—with a bit of Parker coloring, to be sure, which +no one ever objected to. I have seen him with a group of staid +faculty folk sitting breathless at his Clearwater yarns; and how he +loved to tell those tales! Three and a half months he and Hal were +in—hunting, fishing, jerking meat, trailing after lost +horses, having his dreams of Idaho come true. (If our sons fail to +have those dreams!)</p> +<p>When Hal returned to college, the <i>Wanderlust</i> was still +too strong in Carl; so he stopped off in Spokane, Washington, +penniless, to try pot-luck. There were more tales to delight a +gathering. In Spokane he took a hand at reporting, claiming to be a +person of large experience, since only those of large experience +were desired by the editor of the "Spokesman Review." He was given +sport, society, and the tenderloin to cover, at nine dollars a +week. As he never could go anywhere without making folks love him, +it was not long before he had his cronies among the "sports," kind +souls "in society" who took him in, and at least one strong, loyal +friend,—who called him "Bub," and gave him much excellent +advice that he often used to refer to,—who was the owner of +the biggest gambling-joint in town. (Spokane was wide open in those +days, and "some town.")</p> +<p>It was the society friends who seem to have saved his life, for +nine dollars did not go far, even then. I have heard his hostesses +tell of the meal he could consume. "But I'd been saving for it all +day, with just ten cents in my pocket." I met a pal of those days +who used to save Carl considerable of his nine dollars by +"smooching" his wash into his own home laundry.</p> +<p>About then Carl's older brother, Boyd, who was somewhat +fastidious, ran into him in Spokane. He tells how Carl insisted he +should spend the night at his room instead of going to a hotel.</p> +<p>"Is it far from here?"</p> +<p>"Oh, no!"</p> +<p>So they started out with Boyd's suitcase, and walked and walked +through the "darndest part of town you ever saw." Finally, after +crossing untold railroad tracks and ducking around sheds and +through alleys, they came to a rooming-house that was "a holy +fright." "It's all right inside," Carl explained.</p> +<p>When they reached his room, there was one not over-broad bed in +the corner, and a red head showing, snoring contentedly.</p> +<p>"Who's that?" the brother asked.</p> +<p>"Oh, a fellow I picked up somewhere."</p> +<p>"Where am I to sleep?"</p> +<p>"Right in here—the bed's plenty big enough for three!"</p> +<p>And Boyd says, though it was 2 A.M. and miles from anywhere, he +lit out of there as fast as he could move; and he adds, "I don't +believe he even knew that red-headed boy's name!"</p> +<p>The reporting went rather lamely it seemed, however. The editor +said that it read amateurish, and he felt he would have to make a +change. Carl made for some files where all the daily papers were +kept, and read and re-read the yellowest of the yellow. As luck +would have it, that very night a big fire broke out in a crowded +apartment house. It was not in Carl's "beat," but he decided to +cover it anyhow. Along with the firemen, he managed to get upon the +roof; he jumped here, he flew there, demolishing the only suit of +clothes he owned. But what an account he handed in! The editor +discarded entirely the story of the reporter sent to cover the +fire, ran in Carl's, word for word, and raised him to twelve +dollars a week.</p> +<p>But just as the crown of reportorial success was lighting on his +brow, his mother made it plain to him that she preferred to have +him return to college. He bought a ticket to Vacaville,—it +was just about Christmas time,—purchased a loaf of bread and +a can of sardines, and with thirty cents in his pocket, the extent +of his worldly wealth, he left for California, traveling in a day +coach all the way. I remember his story of how, about the end of +the second day of bread and sardines, he cold-bloodedly and with +aforethought cultivated a man opposite him, who looked as if he +could afford to eat; and how the man "came through" and asked Carl +if he would have dinner with him in the diner. To hear him tell +what and how much he ordered, and of the expression and depression +of the paying host! It tided him over until he reached home, +anyhow—never mind the host.</p> +<p>All his mining experience, plus the dark side of life, as +contrasted with society as he saw them both in Spokane, turned his +interest to the field of economics. And when he entered college the +next spring, it was to "major" in that subject.</p> +<p>May and June, 1903, he worked underground in the coal-mines of +Nanaimo. In July he met Nay Moran in Idaho for his second Idaho +camping-trip; and it was on his return from this outing that I met +him, and ate his jerked meat and loved him, and never stopped doing +that for one second.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_III" id="CHAPTER_III"></a>CHAPTER III</h2> +<p>There were three boys in the Parker family, and one girl. Each +of the other brothers had been encouraged to see the world, and in +his turn Carl planned fourteen months in Europe, his serious +objective being, on his return, to act as Extension Secretary to +Professor Stephens of the University of California, who was +preparing to organize Extension work for the first time in +California. Carl was to study the English Extension system and also +prepare for some Extension lecturing.</p> +<p>By that time, we had come a bit to our senses, and I had +realized that since there was no money anyhow to marry on, and +since I was so young, I had better stay on and graduate from +college. Carl could have his trip to Europe and get an option, +perhaps, on a tent in Persia. A friend was telling me recently of +running into Carl on the street just before he left for Europe and +asking him what he was planning to do for the future. Carl answered +with a twinkle, "I don't know but what there's room for an +energetic up-and-coming young man in Asia Minor."</p> +<p>I stopped writing here to read through Carl's European letters, +and laid aside about seven I wanted to quote from: the accounts of +three dinners at Sidney and Beatrice Webb's in London—what +knowing them always meant to him! They, perhaps, have forgotten +him; but meeting the Webbs and Graham Wallas and that English group +could be nothing but red-letter events to a young economic +enthusiast one year out of college, studying Trade-Unionism in the +London School of Economics.</p> +<p>Then there was his South-African trip. He was sent there by a +London firm, to expert a mine near Johannesburg. Although he cabled +five times, said firm sent no money. The bitter disgust and anguish +of those weeks—neither of us ever had much patience under +such circumstances. But he experted his mine, and found it +absolutely worthless; explored the veldt on a second-hand bicycle, +cooked little meals of bacon and mush wherever he found himself, +and wrote to me. Meanwhile he learned much, studied the coolie +question, investigated mine-workings, was entertained by his old +college mates—mining experts themselves—in +Johannesburg. There was the letter telling of the bull fight at +Zanzibar, or Delagoa Bay, or some seafaring port thereabouts, that +broke his heart, it was such a disappointment—"it made a +Kappa tea look gory by comparison." And the letter that regretfully +admitted that perhaps, after all, Persia would not just do to +settle down in. About that time he wanted California with a fearful +want, and was all done with foreign parts, and declared that any +place just big enough for two suited him—it did not need to +be as far away as Persia after all. At last he borrowed money to +get back to Europe, claiming that "he had learned his lesson and +learned it hard." And finally he came home as fast as ever he could +reach Berkeley—did not stop even to telegraph.</p> +<p>I had planned for months a dress I knew he would love to have me +greet him in. It was hanging ready in the closet. As it was, I had +started to retire—in the same room with a Freshman whom I was +supposed to be "rushing" hard—when I heard a soft +whistle—our whistle—under my window. My heart stopped +beating. I just grabbed a raincoat and threw it over me, my hair +down in a braid, and in the middle of a sentence to the astounded +Freshman I dashed out.</p> +<p>My father had said, "If neither of you changes your mind while +Carl is away, I have no objection to your becoming engaged." In +about ten minutes after his return we were formally engaged, on a +bench up in the Deaf and Dumb Asylum grounds—our favorite +trysting-place. It would have been foolish to waste a new dress on +that night. I was clad in cloth of gold for all Carl knew or cared, +or could see in the dark, for that matter. The deserted Freshman +was sound asleep when I got back—and joined another +sorority.</p> +<p>Thereafter, for a time, Carl went into University Extension, +lecturing on Trade-Unionism and South Africa. It did not please him +altogether, and finally my father, a lawyer himself, persuaded him +to go into law. Carl Parker in law! How we used to shudder at it +afterwards; but it was just one more broadening experience that he +got out of life.</p> +<p>Then came the San Francisco earthquake. That was the end of my +Junior year, and we felt we had to be married when I finished +college—nothing else mattered quite as much as that. So when +an offer came out of a clear sky from Halsey and Company, for Carl +to be a bond-salesman on a salary that assured matrimony within a +year, though in no affluence, and the bottom all out of the law +business and no enthusiasm for it anyway, we held a consultation +and decided for bonds and marriage. What a bond-salesman Carl made! +Those who knew him knew what has been referred to as "the magic of +his personality," and could understand how he was having the whole +of a small country town asking him to dinner on his second +visit.</p> +<p>I somehow got through my Senior year; but how the days dragged! +For all I could think of was Carl, Carl, Carl, and getting married. +Yet no one—no one on this earth—ever had the fun out of +their engaged days that we did, when we were together. Carl used to +say that the accumulated expenses of courting me for almost four +years came to $10.25. He just guessed at $10.25, though any cheap +figure would have done. We just did not care about doing things +that happened to cost money. We never did care in our lives, and +never would have cared, no matter what our income might be. +Undoubtedly that was the main reason we were so blissful on such a +small salary in University work—we could never think, at the +time, of anything much we were doing without. I remember that the +happiest Christmas we almost ever had was over in the country, when +we spent under two dollars for all of us. We were absolutely down +to bed-rock that year anyway. (It was just after we paid off our +European debt.) Carl gave me a book, "The Pastor's Wife," and we +gloated over it together all Christmas afternoon! We gave each of +the boys a ten-cent cap-pistol and five cents' worth of +caps—they were in their Paradise. I mended three shirts of +Carl's that had been in my basket so long they were really like new +to him,—he'd forgotten he owned them!—laundered them, +and hung the trio, tied in tissue paper and red ribbon, on the +tree. That <i>was</i> a Christmas!</p> +<p>He used to claim, too, that, as I got so excited over five +cents' worth of gum-drops, there was no use investing in a dollar's +worth of French mixed candy—especially if one hadn't the +dollar. We always loved tramping more than anything else, and just +prowling around the streets arm-in-arm, ending perhaps with an +ice-cream soda. Not over-costly, any of it. I have kept some little +reminder of almost every spree we took in our four engaged +years—it is a book of sheer joy from cover to cover. Except +always, always the need of saying good-bye: it got so that it +seemed almost impossible to say it.</p> +<p>And then came the day when it did not have to be said each +time—that day of days, September 7, 1907, when we were +married. Idaho for our honeymoon had to be abandoned, as three +weeks was the longest vacation period we could wring from a +soulless bond-house. But not even Idaho could have brought us more +joy than our seventy-five-mile trip up the Rogue River in Southern +Oregon. We hired an old buckboard and two ancient, almost immobile, +so-called horses,—they needed scant attention,—and with +provisions, gun, rods, and sleeping-bags, we started forth. The +woods were in their autumn glory, the fish were biting, corn was +ripe along the roadside, and apples—Rogue River +apples—made red blotches under every tree. "Help yourselves!" +the farmers would sing out, or would not sing out. It was all one +to us.</p> +<p>I found that, along with his every other accomplishment, I had +married an expert camp cook. He found that he had married a person +who could not even boil rice. The first night out on our trip, Carl +said, "You start the rice while I tend to the horses." He knew I +could not cook—I had planned to take a course in Domestic +Science on graduation; however, he preferred to marry me earlier, +inexperienced, than later, experienced. But evidently he thought +even a low-grade moron could boil rice. The bride of his heart did +not know that rice swelled when it boiled. We were hungry, we would +want lots of rice, so I put lots in. By the time Carl came back I +had partly cooked rice in every utensil we owned, including the +coffee-pot and the wash-basin. And still he loved me!</p> +<p>That honeymoon! Lazy horses poking unprodded along an almost +deserted mountain road; glimpses of the river lined with autumn +reds and yellows; camp made toward evening in any spot that looked +appealing—and all spots looked appealing; two fish-rods out; +consultation as to flies; leave-taking for half an hour's parting, +while one went up the river to try his luck, one down. Joyous +reunion, with much luck or little luck, but always enough for +supper: trout rolled in cornmeal and fried, corn on the cob just +garnered from a willing or unwilling farmer that afternoon, +corn-bread,—the most luscious corn-bread in the world, baked +camper-style by the man of the party,—and red, red apples, +eaten by two people who had waited four years for just that. +Evenings in a sandy nook by the river's edge, watching the stars +come out above the water. Adventures, such as losing Chocolada, the +brown seventy-eight-year-old horse, and finding her up to her neck +in a deep stream running through a grassy meadow with perpendicular +banks on either side. We walked miles till we found a farmer. With +the aid of himself and his tools, plus a stout rope and a tree, in +an afternoon's time we dug and pulled and hauled and yanked +Chocolada up and out onto dry land, more nearly dead than ever by +that time. The ancient senile had just fallen in while +drinking.</p> +<p>We made a permanent camp for one week seventy-five miles up the +river, in a spot so deserted that we had to cut the road through to +reach it. There we laundered our change of overalls and odds and +ends, using the largest cooking utensil for boiling what was +boiled, and all the food tasted of Ivory soap for two days; but we +did not mind even that. And then, after three weeks, back to skirts +and collars and civilization, and a continued honeymoon from +Medford, Oregon, to Seattle, Washington, doing all the country +banks <i>en route</i>. In Portland we had to be separated for one +whole day—it seemed nothing short of harrowing.</p> +<p>Then came Seattle and house-hunting. We had a hundred dollars a +month to live on, and every apartment we looked at rented for from +sixty dollars up. Finally, in despair, we took two wee rooms, a +wee-er kitchen, and bath, for forty dollars. It was just before the +panic in 1907, and rents were exorbitant. And from having +seventy-five dollars spending money a month before I was married, I +jumped to keeping two of us on sixty dollars, which was what was +left after the rent was paid. I am not rationalizing when I say I +am glad that we did not have a cent more. It was a real sporting +event to make both ends meet! And we did it, and saved a dollar or +so, just to show we could. Any and every thing we commandeered to +help maintain our solvency. Seattle was quite given to food fairs +in those days, and we kept a weather eye out for such. We would eat +no lunch, make for the Food Show about three, nibble at samples all +afternoon, and come home well-fed about eight, having bought enough +necessities here and there to keep our consciences from +hurting.</p> +<p>Much of the time Carl had to be on the road selling bonds, and +we almost grieved our hearts out over that. In fact, we got +desperate, and when Carl was offered an assistant cashiership in a +bank in Ellensburg, Washington, we were just about to accept it, +when the panic came, and it was all for retrenchment in banks. Then +we planned farming, planned it with determination. It was too +awful, those good-byes. Each got worse and harder than the last. We +had divine days in between, to be sure, when we'd prowl out into +the woods around the city, with a picnic lunch, or bummel along the +waterfront, ending at a counter we knew, which produced, or the man +behind it produced, delectable and cheap clubhouse sandwiches.</p> +<p>The bond business, and business conditions generally in the +Northwest, got worse and worse. In March, after six months of +Seattle, we were called back to the San Francisco office. Business +results were better, Carl's salary was raised considerably, but +there were still separations.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IV" id="CHAPTER_IV"></a>CHAPTER IV</h2> +<p>On July 3, the Marvelous Son was born, and never was there such +a father. Even the trained nurse, hardened to new fathers by years +of experience, admitted that she never had seen any one take +parenthood quite so hard. Four times in the night he crept in to +see if the baby was surely breathing. We were in a very quiet +neighborhood, yet the next day, being Fourth of July, now and then +a pop would be heard. At each report of a cap-pistol a block away, +Carl would dash out and vehemently protest to a group of scornful +youngsters that they would wake our son. As if a one-day-old baby +would seriously consider waking if a giant fire-cracker went off +under his bed!</p> +<p>Those were magic days. Three of us in the family instead of +two—and separations harder than ever. Once in all the ten and +a half years we were married I saw Carl Parker downright +discouraged over his own affairs, and that was the day I met him +down town in Oakland and he announced that he just could not stand +the bond business any longer. He had come to dislike it heartily as +a business; and then, leaving the boy and me was not worth the +whole financial world put together. Since his European +experience,—meeting the Webbs and their kind,—he had +had a hankering for University work, but he felt that the money +return was so small he simply could not contemplate raising a +family on it. But now we were desperate. We longed for a life that +would give us the maximum chance to be together. Cold-bloodedly we +decided that University work would give us that opportunity, and +the long vacations would give us our mountains.</p> +<p>The work itself made its strong appeal, too. Professor Henry +Morse Stephens and Professor Miller of the University of California +had long urged Carl to go into teaching; and at last we decided +that, even if it meant living on husks and skimmed milk all our +days, at least we would be eating what there was to eat together, +three meals a day every day. We cashed in our savings, we drew on +everything there was to draw on, and on February 1, 1909, the three +of us embarked for Harvard—with fifty-six dollars and +seventy-five cents excess-baggage to pay at the depot, such young +ignoramuses we were.</p> +<p>That trip East was worth any future hardship we might have +reaped. Our seven-months-old baby was one of the young saints of +the world—not once in the five days did he peep. We'd pin him +securely in the lower berth of our compartment for his nap, and +back we would fly to the corner of the rear platform of the +observation car, and gloat, just gloat, over how we had come into +the inheritance of all creation. We owned the world. And I, who had +never been farther from my California home town than Seattle, who +never had seen real snow, except that Christmas when we spent four +days at the Scenic Hot Springs in the Cascades, and skied and +sledded and spilled around like six-year-olds! But stretches and +stretches of snow! And then, just traveling, and together!</p> +<p>And to be in Boston! We took a room with a bath in the Copley +Square Hotel. The first evening we arrived, Nandy (Carleton, Jr.) +rolled off the bed; so when we went gallivanting about Boston, +shopping for the new home, we left him in the bath-tub where he +could not fall out. We padded it well with pillows, there was a big +window letting in plenty of fresh air, and we instructed the +chambermaid to peep at him now and then. And there we would leave +him, well-nourished and asleep. (By the time that story had been +passed around by enough people in the home town, it developed that +one day the baby—just seven months old, remember—got up +and turned on the water, and was found by the chambermaid sinking +for the third time.)</p> +<p>Something happened to the draft from the home bank, which should +have reached Boston almost at the same time we did. We gazed into +the family pocket-book one fine morning, to find it, to all intents +and purposes, empty. Hurried meeting of the finance committee. By +unanimous consent of all present, we decided—as many another +mortal in a strange town has decided—on the pawnshop. I +wonder if my dear grandmother will read this—she probably +will. Carl first submitted his gold watch—the baby had +dropped it once, and it had shrunk thereby in the eyes of the +pawnshop man, though not in ours. The only other valuable we had +along with us was my grandmother's wedding present to me, which had +been my grandfather's wedding present to her—a glorious +old-fashioned breast-pin. We were allowed fifty dollars on it, +which saved the day. What will my grandmother say when she knows +that her bridal gift resided for some days in a Boston +pawnshop?</p> +<p>We moved out to Cambridge in due time, and settled at Bromley +Court, on the very edge of the Yard. We thrilled to all of +it—we drank in every ounce of dignity and tradition the place +afforded, and our wild Western souls exulted. We knew no one when +we reached Boston, but our first Sunday we were invited to dinner +in Cambridge by two people who were, ever after, our cordial, +faithful friends—Mr. and Mrs. John Graham Brooks. They made +us feel at once that Cambridge was not the socially icy place it is +painted in song and story. Then I remember the afternoon that I had +a week's wash strung on an improvised line back and forth from one +end of our apartment to the other. Just as I hung the last damp +garment, the bell rang, and there stood an immaculate gentleman in +a cutaway and silk hat, who had come to call—an old friend of +my mother's. He ducked under wet clothes, and we set two chairs +where we could see each other, and yet nothing was dripping down +either of our necks; and there we conversed, and he ended by +inviting us both to dinner—on Marlborough Street, at that! He +must have loved my mother very dearly to have sought further +acquaintance with folk who hung the family wash in the hall and the +living-room and dining-room. His house on Marlborough Street! We +boldly and excitedly figured up on the way home, that they spent on +the one meal they fed us more than it cost us to live for two +weeks—they honestly did.</p> +<p>Then there was the dear "Jello" lady at the market. I wish she +would somehow happen to read this, so as to know that we have never +forgotten her. Every Saturday the three of us went to the market, +and there was the Jello lady with her samples. The helpings she +dished for us each time! She brought the man to whom she was +engaged to call on us just before we left. I wonder if they got +married, and where they are, and if she still remembers us. She +used to say she just waited for Saturdays and our coming. Then +there was dear Granny Jones, who kept a boarding-house half a block +away. I do not remember how we came to know her, but some good +angel saw to it. She used to send around little bowls of luscious +dessert, and half a pie, or some hot muffins. Then I was always +grateful also—for it made such a good story, and it was +true—to the New England wife of a fellow graduate student who +remarked, when I told her we had one baby and another on the way, +"How interesting—just like the slums!"</p> +<p>We did our own work, of course, and we lived on next to nothing. +I wonder now how we kept so well that year. Of course, we fed the +baby everything he should have,—according to Holt in those +days,—and we ate the mutton left from his broth and the beef +after the juice had been squeezed out of it for him, and bought +storage eggs ourselves, and queer butter out of a barrel, and were +absolutely, absolutely blissful. Perhaps we should have spent more +on food and less on baseball. I am glad we did not. Almost every +Saturday afternoon that first semester we fared forth early, Nandy +in his go-cart, to get a seat in the front row of the baseball +grandstand. I remember one Saturday we were late, front seats all +taken. We had to pack baby and go-cart more than half-way up to the +top. There we barricaded him, still in the go-cart, in the middle +of the aisle. Along about the seventh inning, the game waxed +particularly exciting—we were beside ourselves with +enthusiasm. Fellow onlookers seemed even more excited—they +called out things—they seemed to be calling in our direction. +Fine parents we were—there was Nandy, go-cart and all, +bumpety-bumping down the grandstand steps.</p> +<p>I remember again the Stadium on the day of the big track meet. +Every time the official announcer would put the megaphone to his +mouth, to call out winners and time to a hushed and eager throng, +Nandy, not yet a year old, would begin to squeal at the top of his +lungs for joy. Nobody could hear a word the official said. We were +as distressed as any one—we, too, had pencils poised to jot +down records.</p> +<p>Carl studied very hard. The first few weeks, until we got used +to the new wonder of things, he used to run home from college +whenever he had a spare minute, just to be sure he was that near. +At that time he was rather preparing to go into Transportation as +his main economic subject. But by the end of the year he knew Labor +would be his love. (His first published economic article was a +short one that appeared in the "Quarterly Journal of Economics" for +May, 1910, on "The Decline of Trade-Union Membership.") We had a +tragic summer.</p> +<p>Carl felt that he must take his Master's degree, but he had no +foreign language. Three terrible, wicked, unforgivable professors +assured him that, if he could be in Germany six weeks during summer +vacation, he could get enough German to pass the examination for +the A.M. We believed them, and he went; though of all the partings +we ever had, that was the very worst. Almost at the last he just +could not go; but we were so sure that it would solve the whole +A.M. problem. He went third class on a German steamer, since we had +money for nothing better. The food did distress even his unfinicky +soul. After a particularly sad offering of salt herring, uncooked, +on a particularly rough day, he wrote, "I find I am not a good +Hamburger German. The latter eat all things in all weather."</p> +<p>Oh, the misery of that summer! We never talked about it much. He +went to Freiburg, to a German cobbler's family, but later changed, +as the cobbler's son looked upon him as a dispensation of +Providence, sent to practise his English upon. His heart was +breaking, and mine was breaking, and he was working at German (and +languages came fearfully hard for him) morning, afternoon, and +night, with two lessons a day, his only diversion being a daily +walk up a hill, with a cake of soap and a towel, to a secluded +waterfall he discovered. He wrote a letter and a postcard a day to +the babe and me. I have just re-read all of them, and my heart +aches afresh for the homesickness that summer meant to both of +us.</p> +<p>He got back two days before our wedding anniversary—days +like those first few after our reunion are not given to many +mortals. I would say no one had ever tasted such joy. The baby +gurgled about, and was kissed within an inch of his life. The Jello +lady sent around a dessert of sixteen different colors, more or +less, big enough for a family of eight, as her welcome home.</p> +<p>About six weeks later we called our beloved Dr. J—— +from a banquet he had long looked forward to, in order to officiate +at the birth of our second, known as Thomas-Elizabeth up to October +17, but from about ten-thirty that night as James Stratton Parker. +We named him after my grandfather, for the simple reason that we +liked the name Jim. How we chuckled when my father's congratulatory +telegram came, in which he claimed pleasure at having the boy named +after his father, but cautioned us never to allow him to be +nicknamed. I remember the boresome youth who used to call, week in +week out,—always just before a meal,—and we were so +hard up, and got so that we resented feeding such an impossible +person so many times. He dropped in at noon Friday the 17th, for +lunch. A few days later Carl met him on the street and announced +rapturously the arrival of the new son. The impossible person +hemmed and stammered: "Why—er—when did it arrive?" +Carl, all beams, replied, "The very evening of the day you were at +our house for lunch!" We never laid eyes on that man again! We were +almost four months longer in Cambridge, but never did he step foot +inside our apartment. I wish some one could have psycho-analyzed +him, but it's too late now. He died about a year after we left +Cambridge. I always felt that he never got over the shock of having +escaped Jim's arrival by such a narrow margin.</p> +<p>And right here I must tell of Dr. J——. He was +recommended as the best doctor in Cambridge, but very expensive. +"We may have to economize in everything on earth," said Carl, "but +we'll never economize on doctors." So we had Dr. J——, +had him for all the minor upsets that families need doctors for; +had him when Jim was born; had him through a queer fever Nandy +developed that lasted some time; had him through a bad case of +grippe I got (this was at Christmastime, and Carl took care of both +babies, did all the cooking, even to the Christmas turkey I was +well enough to eat by then, got up every two hours for three nights +to change an ice-pack I had to have—that's the kind of man he +was!); had him vaccinate both children; and then, just before we +left Cambridge, we sat and held his bill, afraid to open the +envelope. At length we gathered our courage, and gazed upon charges +of sixty-five dollars for everything, with a wonderful note which +said that, if we would be inconvenienced in paying that, he would +not mind at all if he got nothing.</p> +<p>Such excitement! We had expected two hundred dollars at the +least! We tore out and bought ten cents' worth of doughnuts, to +celebrate. When we exclaimed to him over his goodness,—of +course we paid the sixty-five dollars,—all he said was: "Do +you think a doctor is blind? And does a man go steerage to Europe +if he has a lot of money in the bank?" Bless that doctor's heart! +Bless all doctors' hearts! We went through our married life in the +days of our financial slimness, with kindness shown us by every +doctor we ever had. I remember our Heidelberg German doctor sent us +a bill for a year of a dollar and a half. And even in our more +prosperous days, at Carl's last illness, with that good Seattle +doctor calling day and night, and caring for me after Carl's death, +he refused to send any bill for anything. And a little later, when +I paid a long overdue bill to our blessed Oakland doctor for a +tonsil operation, he sent the check back torn in two. Bless +doctors!</p> +<p>When we left for Harvard, we had an idea that perhaps one year +of graduate work would be sufficient. Naturally, about two months +was enough to show us that one year would get us nowhere. Could we +finance an added year at, perhaps, Wisconsin? And then, in +November, Professor Miller of Berkeley called to talk things over +with Carl. Anon he remarked, more or less casually, "The thing for +you to do is to have a year's study in Germany," and proceeded to +enlarge on that idea. We sat dumb, and the minute the door was +closed after him, we flopped. "What was the man thinking +of—to suggest a year in Germany, when we have no money and +two babies, one not a year and a half, and one six weeks old!" +Preposterous!</p> +<p>That was Saturday afternoon. By Monday morning we had decided we +would go! Thereupon we wrote West to finance the plan, and got +beautifully sat upon for our "notions." If we needed money, we had +better give up this whole fool University idea and get a decent +man-sized job. And then we wrote my father,—or, rather, I +wrote him without telling Carl till after the letter was +mailed,—and bless his heart! he replied with a fat +God-bless-you-my-children registered letter, with check enclosed, +agreeing to my stipulation that it should be a six-per-cent +business affair. Suppose we could not have raised that +money—suppose our lives had been minus that German +experience! Bless fathers! They may scold and fuss at romance, and +have "good sensible ideas of their own" on such matters, +but—bless fathers!</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_V" id="CHAPTER_V"></a>CHAPTER V</h2> +<p>We finished our year at Harvard, giving up the A.M. idea for the +present. Carl got A's in every subject and was asked to take a +teaching fellowship under Ripley; but it was Europe for us. We set +forth February 22, 1909, in a big snowstorm, with two babies, and +one thousand six hundred and seventy-six bundles, bags, and +presents. Jim was in one of those fur-bags that babies use in the +East. Everything we were about to forget the last minute got shoved +into that bag with Jim, and it surely began to look as if we had +brought a young and very lumpy mastodon into the world!</p> +<p>We went by boat from Boston to New York, and sailed on the +Pennsylvania February 24. People wrote us in those days: "You two +brave people—think of starting to Europe with two babies!" +Brave was the last word to use. Had we worried or had fears over +anything, and yet fared forth, we should perhaps have been brave. +As it was, I can feel again the sensation of leaving New York, +gazing back on the city buildings and bridges bathed in sunshine +after the storm. Exultant joy was in our hearts, that was all. Not +one worry, not one concern, not one small drop of homesickness. We +were to see Europe together, year before we had dreamed it +possible. It just seemed too glorious to be true. "Brave"? Far from +it. Simply eager, glowing, filled to the brim with a determination +to drain every day to the full.</p> +<p>I discovered that, while my husband had married a female who +could not cook rice (though she learned), I had taken unto myself a +spouse who curled up green half a day out on the ocean, and stayed +that way for about six days. He tried so desperately to help with +the babies, but it always made matters worse. If I had turned +green, too—But babies and I prospered without interruption, +though some ants did try to eat Jim's scalp off one +night—"sugar ants" the doctor called them. "They knew their +business," our dad remarked. We were three days late getting into +Hamburg—fourteen days on the ocean, all told. And then to be +in Hamburg in Germany—in Europe! I remember our first meal in +the queer little cheap hotel we rooted out. "<i>Eier</i>" was the +only word on the bill of fare we could make out, so Carl brushed up +his German and ordered four for us, fried. And the waiter brought +four each. He probably declared for years that all Americans always +eat four fried eggs each and every night for supper.</p> +<p>We headed for Leipzig at once, and there Carl unearthed the +Pension Schröter on Sophien Platz. There we had two rooms and +all the food we could eat,—far too much for us to eat, and +oh! so delicious,—for fifty-five dollars a month for the +entire family, although Jim hardly ranked as yet, economically +speaking, as part of the consuming public. We drained Leipzig to +the dregs—a good German idiom. Carl worked at his German +steadily, almost frantically, with a lesson every day along with +all his university work—a seven o'clock lecture by +Bücher every morning being the cheery start for the day, and +we blocks and blocks from the University. I think of Carl through +those days with extra pride, though it is hard to decide that I was +ever prouder of him at one time than another. But he strained and +labored without ceasing at such an uninspiring job. All his hard +study that broken-hearted summer at Freiburg had given him no +single word of an economic vocabulary. In Leipzig he listened hour +by hour to the lectures of his German professors, sometimes not +understanding an important word for several days, yet exerting +every intellectual muscle to get some light in his darkness. Then, +for, hours each day and almost every evening, it was grammar, +grammar, grammar, till he wondered at times if all life meant an +understanding of the subjunctive. Then, little by little, rays of +hope. "I caught five words in ——'s lecture to-day!" +Then it was ten, then twenty. Never a lecture of any day did he +miss.</p> +<p>We stole moments for joy along the way. First, of course, there +was the opera—grand opera at twenty-five cents a seat. How +Wagner bored us at first—except the parts here and there that +we had known all our lives. Neither of us had had any musical +education to speak of; each of us got great joy out of what we +considered "good" music, but which was evidently low-brow. And +Wagner at first was too much for us. That night in Leipzig we heard +the "Walküre!"—utterly aghast and rather impatient at so +much non-understandable noise. Then we would drop down to "Carmen," +"La Bohême," Hoffman's "Erzäblung," and think, "This is +life!" Each night that we spared for a spree we sought out some +beer-hall—as unfrequented a one as possible, to get all the +local color we could.</p> +<p>Once Carl decided that, as long as we had come so far, I must +get a glimpse of real European night-life—it might startle me +a bit, but would do no harm. So, after due deliberation, he led me +to the Café Bauer, the reputed wild and questionable resort +of Leipzig night-life, though the pension glanced ceiling-wards and +sighed and shook their heads. I do not know just what I did expect +to see, but I know that what I saw was countless stolid family +parties—on all sides grandmas and grandpas and sons and +daughters, and the babies in high chairs beating the tables with +spoons. It was quite the most moral atmosphere we ever found +ourselves in. That is what you get for deliberately setting out to +see the wickedness of the world!</p> +<p>From Leipzig we went to Berlin. We did not want to go to +Berlin—Jena was the spot we had in mind. Just as a few months +at Harvard showed us that one year there would be but a mere start, +so one semester in Germany showed us that one year there would get +us nowhere. We must stay longer,—from one to two years +longer,—but how, alas, how finance it? That eternal question! +We finally decided that, if we took the next semester or so in +Berlin, Carl could earn money enough coaching to keep us going +without having to borrow more. So to Berlin we went. We +accomplished our financial purpose, but at too great a cost.</p> +<p>In Berlin we found a small furnished apartment on the ground +floor of a Gartenhaus in Charlottenburg—Mommsen Strasse it +was. At once Carl started out to find coaching; and how he found it +always seemed to me an illustration of the way he could succeed at +anything anywhere. We knew no one in Berlin. First he went to the +minister of the American church; he in turn gave him names of +Americans who might want coaching, and then Carl looked up those +people. In about two months he had all the coaching he could +possibly handle, and we could have stayed indefinitely in Berlin in +comfort, for Carl was making over one hundred dollars a month, and +that in his spare time.</p> +<p>But the agony of those months: to be in Germany and yet get so +little Germany out of it! We had splendid letters of introduction +to German people, from German friends we had made in Leipzig, but +we could not find a chance even to present them. Carl coached three +youngsters in the three R's; he was preparing two of the age just +above, for college; he had one American youth, who had ambitions to +burst out monthly in the "Saturday Evening Post" stories; there was +a class of five middle-aged women, who wanted Shakespeare, and got +it; two classes in Current Events; one group of Christian +Scientists, who put in a modest demand for the history of the +world. I remember Carl had led them up to Pepin the Short when we +left Berlin. He contracted everything and anything except one group +who desired a course of lectures in Pragmatism. I do not think he +had ever heard of the term then, but he took one look at the lay of +the land and said—not so! In his last years, when he became +such a worshiper at the shrine of William James and John Dewey, we +often used to laugh at his Berlin profanity over the very idea of +ever getting a word of such "bunk" into his head.</p> +<p>But think of the strain it all meant—lessons and lessons +every day, on every subject under heaven, and in every spare minute +continued grinding at his German, and, of course, every day +numerous hours at the University, and so little time for sprees +together. We assumed in our prosperity the luxury of a +maid—the unparalleled Anna Bederke aus Rothenburg, Kreis +Bumps (?), Posen, at four dollars a month, who for a year and a +half was the amusement and desperation of ourselves and our +friends. Dear, crooked-nosed, one-good-eye Anna! She adored the +ground we walked on. Our German friends told us we had ruined her +forever—she would never be fit for the discipline of a German +household again. Since war was first declared we have lost all +track of Anna. Was her Poland home in the devastated country? Did +she marry a soldier, and is she too, perhaps, a widow? Faithful +Anna, do not think for one minute you will ever be forgotten by the +Parkers.</p> +<p>With Anna to leave the young with now and then, I was able to +get in two sprees a week with Carl. Every Wednesday and Saturday +noon I met him at the University and we had lunch together. Usually +on Wednesdays we ate at the Café Rheingold, the spot I think +of with most affection as I look back on Berlin.</p> +<p>We used to eat in the "Shell Room"—an individual +chicken-and-rice pie (as much chicken as rice), a vegetable, and a +glass of beer each, for thirty-five cents for both. Saturdays we +hunted for different smaller out-of-the-way restaurants. Wednesday +nights "Uncle K." of the University of Wisconsin always came to +supper, bringing a thirty-five-cent rebate his landlady allowed him +when he ate out; and we had chicken every Wednesday night, which +cost—a fat one—never more than fifty cents. (It was +Uncle K. who wrote, "The world is so different with Carl gone!") +Once we rented bicycles and rode all through the Tiergarten, Carl +and I, with the expected stiffness and soreness next day.</p> +<p>Then there was Christmas in Berlin. Three friends traveled up +from Rome to be with us, two students came from Leipzig, and four +from Berlin—eleven for dinner, and four chairs all told. It +was a regular "La Bohême" festival—one guest appearing +with a bottle of wine under his arm, another with a jar of caviare +sent him from Russia. We had a gay week of it after Christmas, when +the whole eleven of us went on some Dutch-treat spree every night, +before going back to our studies.</p> +<p>Then came those last grueling months in Berlin, when Carl had a +breakdown, and I got sick nursing him and had to go to a German +hospital; and while I was there Jim was threatened with pneumonia +and Nandy got tonsillitis. In the midst of it all the lease expired +on our Wohnung, and Carl and Anna had to move the family out. We +decided that we had had all we wanted of coaching in +Berlin,—we came to that conclusion before any of the +breakdowns,—threw our pride to the winds, borrowed more money +from my good father, and as soon as the family was well enough to +travel, we made for our ever-to-be-adored Heidelberg.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VI" id="CHAPTER_VI"></a>CHAPTER VI</h2> +<p>Here I sit back, and words fail me. I see that year as a +kaleidoscope of one joyful day after another, each rushing by and +leaving the memory that we both always had, of the most perfect +year that was ever given to mortals on earth. I remember our eighth +wedding anniversary in Berkeley. We had been going night after +night until we were tired of going anywhere,—engagements +seemed to have heaped up,—so we decided that the very +happiest way we could celebrate that most-to-be-celebrated of all +dates was just to stay at home, plug the telephone, pull down the +blinds, and have an evening by ourselves. Then we got out +everything that we kept as mementos of our European days, and went +over them—all the postcards, memory-books, theatre and opera +programmes, etc., and, lastly, read my diary—I had kept a +record of every day in Europe. When we came to that year in +Heidelberg, we just could not believe our own eyes. How had we ever +managed to pack a year so full, and live to tell the tale? I wish I +could write a story of just that year. We swore an oath in Berlin +that we would make Heidelberg mean Germany to us—no +English-speaking, no Americans. As far as it lay in our power, we +lived up to it. Carl and I spoke only German to each other and to +the children, and we shunned our fellow countrymen as if they had +had the plague. And Carl, in the characteristic way he had, set out +to fill our lives with all the real German life we could get into +them, not waiting for that life to come of itself—which it +might never have done.</p> +<p>One afternoon, on his way home from the University, he +discovered in a back alley the Weiser Boch, a little restaurant and +beer-hall so full of local color that it "hollered." No, it did not +holler: it was too real for that. It was sombre and carved +up—it whispered. Carl made immediate friends, in the way he +had, with the portly Frau and Herr who ran the Weiser Boch: they +desired to meet me, they desired to see the Kinder, and would not +the Herr Student like to have the Weiser Boch lady mention his name +to some of the German students who dropped in? Carl left his card, +and wondered if anything would come of it.</p> +<p>The very next afternoon,—such a glowing account of the +Amerikaner the Weiser Boch lady must have given,—a real truly +German student, in his corps cap and ribbons, called at our +home—the stiffest, most decorous heel-clicking German student +I ever was to see. His embarrassment was great when he discovered +that Carl was out, and I seemed to take it quite for granted that +he was to sit down for a moment and visit with me. He fell over +everything. But we visited, and I was able to gather that his corps +wished Herr Student Par-r-r-ker to have beer with them the +following evening. Then he bowed himself backwards and out, and +fled.</p> +<p>I could scarce wait for Carl to get home—it was too good +to be true. And that was but the beginning. Invitation after +invitation came to Carl, first from one corps, then from another; +almost every Saturday night he saw German student-life first hand +somewhere, and at least one day a week he was invited to the duels +in the Hirsch Gasse. Little by little we got the students to our +Wohnung; then we got chummier and chummier, till we would walk up +Haupt Strasse saluting here, passing a word there, invited to some +student function one night, another affair another night. The +students who lived in Heidelberg had us meet their families, and +those who were batching in Heidelberg often had us come to their +rooms. We made friendships during that year that nothing could ever +mar.</p> +<p>It is two years now since we received the last letter from any +Heidelberg chum. Are they all killed, perhaps? And when we can +communicate again, after the war, think of what I must write them! +Carl was a revelation to most of them—they would talk about +him to me, and ask if all Americans were like him, so fresh in +spirit, so clean, so sincere, so full of fun, and, with it all, +doing the finest work of all of them but one in the University.</p> +<p>The economics students tried to think of some way of influencing +Alfred Weber to give another course of lectures at the University. +He was in retirement at Heidelberg, but still the adored of the +students. Finally, they decided that a committee of three should +represent them and make a personal appeal. Carl was one of the +three chosen. The report soon flew around, how, in Weber's august +presence, the Amerikaner had stood with his hands in his +pockets—even sat for a few moments on the edge of Weber's +desk. The two Germans, posed like ramrods, expected to see such +informality shoved out bodily. Instead, when they took their leave, +the Herr Professor had actually patted the Amerikaner on the +shoulder, and said he guessed he would give the lectures.</p> +<p>Then his report in Gothein's Seminar, which went so well that I +fairly burst with pride. He had worked day and night on that. I was +to meet him at eight after it had been given, and we were to have a +celebration. I was standing by the entrance to the University +building when out came an enthused group of jabbering German +students, Carl in their midst. They were patting him on the back, +shaking his hands furiously; and when they saw me, they rushed to +tell me of Carl's success and how Gothein had said before all that +it had been the best paper presented that semester.</p> +<p>I find myself smiling as I write this—I was too happy that +night to eat.</p> +<p>The Sunday trips we made up the Neckar: each morning early we +would take the train and ride to where we had walked the Sunday +previous; then we would tramp as far as we could,—meaning +until dark,—have lunch at some untouristed inn along the +road, or perhaps eat a picnic lunch of our own in some old castle +ruin, and then ride home. Oh, those Sundays! I tell you no two +people in all this world, since people were, have ever had +<i>one</i> day like those Sundays. And we had them almost every +week. It would have been worth going to Germany for just one of +those days.</p> +<p>There was the gay, glad party that the Economic students gave, +out in Handschusheim at the "zum Bachlenz"; first, the banquet, +with a big roomful of jovial young Germans; then the play, in which +Carl and I both took part. Carl appeared in a mixture of his Idaho +outfit and a German peasant's costume, beating a large drum. He +represented "Materialindex," and called out loudly, "Ich bitte mich +nicht zu vergessen. Ich bin auch da." I was "Methode," which nobody +wanted to claim; whereat I wept. I am looking at the flashlight +picture of us all at this moment. Then came the dancing, and then +at about four o'clock the walk home in the moonlight, by the old +castle ruin in Handschusheim, singing the German student-songs.</p> +<p>There was Carnival season, with its masque balls and frivolity, +and Faschings Dienstag, when Hauptstrasse was given over to +merriment all afternoon, every one trailing up and down the middle +of the street masked, and in fantastic costume, throwing confetti +and tooting horns, Carl and I tooting with the rest.</p> +<p>As time went on, we came to have one little group of nine +students whom we were with more than any others. As each of the men +took his degree, he gave a party to the rest of us to celebrate it, +every one trying to outdo the other in fun. Besides these most +important degree celebrations, there were less dazzling affairs, +such as birthday parties, dinners, or afternoon coffee in honor of +visiting German parents, or merely meeting together in our favorite +café after a Socialist lecture or a Max Reger concert. In +addition to such functions, Carl and I had our Wednesday night +spree just by ourselves, when every week we met after his seminar. +Our budget allowed just twelve and a half cents an evening for both +of us. I put up a supper at home, and in good weather we ate down +by the river or in some park. When it rained and was cold, we sat +in a corner of the third-class waiting-room by the stove, watching +the people coming and going in the station. Then, for dessert, we +went every Wednesday to Tante's Conditorei, where, for two and a +half cents apiece, we got a large slice of a special brand of the +most divine cake ever baked. Then, for two and a half cents, we saw +the movies—at a reduced rate because we presented a certain +number of street-car transfers along with the cash, and then had to +sit in the first three rows. But you see, we used to remark, we +have to sit so far away at the opera, it's good to get up close at +something! Those were real movies—no danger of running into a +night-long Robert W. Chambers scenario. It was in the days before +such developments. Then across the street was an "Automat," and +there, for a cent and a quarter apiece, we could hold a glass under +a little spigot, press a button, and get—refreshments. Then +we walked home.</p> +<p>O Heidelberg—I love your every tree, every stone, every +blade of grass!</p> +<p>But at last our year came to an end. We left the town in a bower +of fruit-blossoms, as we had found it. Our dear, most faithful +friends, the Kecks, gave us a farewell luncheon; and with babies, +bundles, and baggage, we were off.</p> +<p>Heidelberg was the only spot I ever wept at leaving. I loved it +then, and I love it now, as I love no other place on earth and Carl +felt the same way. We were mournful, indeed, as that train pulled +out.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VII" id="CHAPTER_VII"></a>CHAPTER VII</h2> +<p>The next two weeks were filled with vicissitudes. The idea was +for Carl to settle the little family in some rural bit of Germany, +while he did research work in the industrial section of Essen, and +thereabouts, coming home week-ends. We stopped off first at Bonn. +Carl spent several days searching up and down the Rhine and through +the Moselle country for a place that would do, which meant a place +we could afford that was fit and suitable for the babies. There was +nothing. The report always was: pensions all expensive, and +automobiles touring by at a mile a minute where the children would +be playing.</p> +<p>On a wild impulse we moved up to Clive, on the Dutch border. +After Carl went in search of a pension, it started to drizzle. The +boys, baggage, and I found the only nearby place of shelter in a +stone-cutter's inclosure, filled with new and ornate tombstones. +What was my impecunious horror, when I heard a small crash and +discovered that Jim had dislocated a loose figure of Christ +(unconsciously Cubist in execution) from the top of a tombstone! +Eight marks charges! the cost of sixteen Heidelberg sprees. On his +return, Carl reported two pensions, one quarantined for diphtheria, +one for scarlet fever. We slept over a beer-hall, with such a +racket going on all night as never was; and next morning took the +first train out—this time for Düsseldorf.</p> +<p>It is a trifle momentous, traveling with two babies around a +country you know nothing about, and can find no one to enlighten +you. At Düsseldorf Carl searched through the town and suburbs +for a spot to settle us in, getting more and more depressed at the +thought of leaving us anywhere. That Freiburg summer had seared us +both deep, and each of us dreaded another separation more than +either let the other know. And then, one night, after another +fruitless search, Carl came home and informed me that the whole +scheme was off. Instead of doing his research work, we would all go +to Munich, and he would take an unexpected semester there, working +with Brentano.</p> +<p>What rejoicings, oh, what rejoicings! As Carl remarked, it may +be that "He travels fastest who travels alone"; but speed was not +the only thing he was after. So the next day, babies, bundles, +baggage, and parents went down the Rhine, almost through +Heidelberg, to Munich, with such joy and contentment in our hearts +as we could not describe. All those days of unhappy searchings Carl +had been through must have sunk deep, for in his last days of fever +he would tell me of a form of delirium in which he searched again, +with a heart of lead, for a place to leave the babies and me.</p> +<p>I remember our first night in Munich. We arrived about +supper-time, hunted up a cheap hotel as usual, near the station, +fed the babies, and started to prepare for their retirement. This +process in hotels was always effected by taking out two +bureau-drawers and making a bed of each. While we were busy over +this, the boys were busy over—just busy. This time they both +crawled up into a large clothes-press that stood in our room, when, +crash! bang!—there lay the clothes-press, front down, on the +floor, boys inside it. Such a commotion—hollerings and +squallings from the internals of the clothes-press, agitated +scurryings from all directions of the hotel-keeper, his wife, +waiters, and chambermaids. All together, we managed to stand the +clothes-press once more against the wall, and to extricate two +sobered young ones, the only damage being two clothes-press doors +banged off their hinges.</p> +<p>Munich is second in my heart to Heidelberg. Carl worked hardest +of all there, hardly ever going out nights; but we never got over +the feeling that our being there together was a sort of gift we had +made ourselves, and we were ever grateful. And then Carl did so +remarkably well in the University. A report, for instance, which he +read before Brentano's seminar was published by the University. Our +relations' with Brentano always stood out as one of the high +memories of Germany. After Carl's report in Brentano's class, that +lovable idol of the German students called him to his desk and had +a long talk, which ended by his asking us both to tea at his house +the following day. The excitement of our pension over that! We were +looked upon as the anointed of the Lord. We were really a bit +overawed, ourselves. We discussed neckties, and brushed and +cleaned, and smelled considerably of gasoline as we strutted forth, +too proud to tell, because we were to have tea with Brentano! I can +see the street their house was on, their front door; I can feel +again the little catch in our breaths as we rang the bell. Then the +charming warmth and color of that Italian home, the charming warmth +and hospitality of that white-haired professor and his gracious, +kindly wife. There were just ourselves there; and what a momentous +time it was to the little Parkers! Carl was simply radiating joy, +and in the way he always had when especially pleased, would give a +sudden beam from ear to ear, and a wink at me when no one else was +looking.</p> +<p>Not long after that we were invited for dinner, and again for +tea, this time, according to orders, bringing the sons. They both +fell into an Italian fountain in the rear garden as soon as we went +in for refreshments. By my desk now is hanging a photograph we have +prized as one of our great treasures. Below it is written: "Mrs. +and Mr. Parker, zur freundlichen Erinnerrung—Lujio Brentano." +Professor Bonn, another of Carl's professors at the University, and +his wife, were kindness itself to us. Then there was Peter, dear +old Peter, the Austrian student at our pension, who took us +everywhere, brought us gifts, and adored the babies until he almost +spoiled them.</p> +<p>From Munich we went direct to England. Vicissitudes again in +finding a cheap and fit place that would do for children to settle +in. After ever-hopeful wanderings, we finally stumbled upon Swanage +in Dorset. That was a love of a place on the English Channel, where +we had two rooms with the Mebers in their funny little brick house, +the "Netto." Simple folk they were: Mr. Meber a retired sailor, the +wife rather worn with constant roomers, one daughter a dressmaker, +the other working in the "knittin" shop. Charges, six dollars a +week for the family, which included cooking and serving our +meals—we bought the food ourselves.</p> +<p>Here Carl prepared for his Ph.D. examination, and worked on his +thesis until it got to the point where he needed the British +Museum. Then he took a room and worked during the week in London, +coming down to us week-ends. He wrote eager letters, for the time +had come when he longed to get the preparatory work and examination +behind him and begin teaching. We had an instructorship at the +University of California waiting for us, and teaching was to begin +in January. In one letter he wrote: "I now feel like landing on my +exam, like a Bulgarian; I am that fierce to lay it out." We felt +more than ever, in those days of work piling up behind us, that we +owned the world; as Carl wrote in another letter: "We'll stick this +out [this being the separation of his last trip to London, whence +he was to start for Heidelberg and his examination, without another +visit with us], for, <i>Gott sei dank!</i> the time isn't so +fearful, fearful long, it isn't really, is it? Gee! I'm glad I +married you. And I want more babies and more you, and then the +whole gang together for about ninety-two years. But life is so fine +to us and we are getting so much love and big things out of +life!"</p> +<p>November 1 Carl left London for Heidelberg. He was to take his +examination there December 5, so the month of November was a full +one for him. He stayed with the dear Kecks, Mother Keck pressing +and mending his clothes, hovering over him as if he were her own +son. He wrote once: "To-day we had a small leg of venison which I +sneaked in last night. Every time I note that I burn three quarters +of a lampful of oil a day among the other things I cost them, it +makes me feel like buying out a whole Conditorei."</p> +<p>I lived for those daily letters telling of his progress. Once he +wrote: "Just saw Fleiner [Professor in Law] and he was <i>fine</i>, +but I must get his Volkerrecht cold. It is fine reading, and is +mighty good and interesting every word, and also stuff which a man +ought to know. This is the last man to see. From now on, it is only +to <i>study</i>, and I am tickled. I do really like to study." A +few days later he wrote: "It is just plain sit and absorb these +days. Some day I will explain how tough it is to learn an entire +law subject in five days in a strange tongue."</p> +<p>And then, on the night of December 5, came the telegram of +success to "Frau Dr. Parker." We both knew he would pass, but +neither of us was prepared for the verdict of "<i>Summa cum +laude</i>," the highest accomplishment possible. I went up and down +the main street of little Swanage, announcing the tidings right and +left. The community all knew that Carl was in Germany to take some +kind of an examination, though it all seemed rather unexplainable. +Yet they rejoiced with me,—the butcher, the baker, the +candlestick-maker,—without having the least idea what they +were rejoicing about. Mrs. Meber tore up and down Osborne Road to +have the fun of telling the immediate neighbors, all of whom were +utterly at a loss to know what it meant, the truth being that Mrs. +Meber herself was in that same state. But she had somehow caught my +excitement, and anything to tell was scarce in Swanage.</p> +<p>So the little family that fared forth from Oakland, California, +that February 1, for one year at Harvard had ended +thus—almost four years later a Ph.D. <i>summa cum laude</i> +from Heidelberg. Not Persia as we had planned it nine years +before—a deeper, finer life than anything we had dreamed. We +asked Professor Miller, after we got back to California, why in the +world he had said just "one year in Europe."</p> +<p>"If I had said more, I was afraid it would scare you altogether +out of ever starting; and I knew if you once got over there and +were made of the right stuff, you'd stay on for a Ph.D."</p> +<p>On December 12 Carl was to deliver one of a series of lectures +in Munich for the Handelshochschule, his subject being "Die +Einwanderungs und Siedelungspolitik in Amerika (Carleton Parker, +Privatdocent, California-Universität, St. Francisco)." That +very day, however, the Prince Regent died, and everything was +called off. We had our glory—and got our pay. Carl was so +tired from his examination, that he did not object to foregoing the +delivery of a German address before an audience of four hundred. It +was read two weeks later by one of the professors.</p> +<p>On December 15 we had our reunion and celebration of it all. +Carl took the Amerika, second class, at Hamburg; the boys and I at +Southampton, ushered thither from Swanage and put aboard the +steamer by our faithful Onkel Keck, son of the folk with whom Carl +had stayed in Heidelberg, who came all the way from London for that +purpose. It was not such a brash Herr Doktor that we found, after +all: the Channel had begun to tell on him, as it were, and while it +was plain that he loved us, it was also plain that he did not love +the water. So we gave him his six days off, and he lay anguish-eyed +in a steamer-chair while I covered fifty-seven miles a day, tearing +after two sons who were far more filled with Wanderlust than they +had been three years before. When our dad did feel chipper again, +he felt very chipper, and our last four days were perfect.</p> +<p>We landed in New York on Christmas Eve, in a snowstorm; paid the +crushing sum of one dollar and seventy-five cents duty,—such +a jovial agent as inspected our belongings I never beheld; he must +already have had just the Christmas present he most wanted, +whatever it was. When he heard that we had been in Heidelberg, he +and several other officials began a lusty rendering of "Old +Heidelberg,"—and within an hour we were speeding toward +California, a case of certified milk added to our already +innumerable articles of luggage. Christmas dinner we ate on the +train. How those American dining-car prices floored us after three +years of all we could eat for thirty-five cents!</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_VIII" id="CHAPTER_VIII"></a>CHAPTER VIII</h2> +<p>We looked back always on our first semester's teaching in the +University of California as one hectic term. We had lived our own +lives, found our own joys, for four years, and here we were +enveloped by old friends, by relatives, by new friends, until we +knew not which way to turn. In addition, Carl was swamped by campus +affairs—by students, many of whom seemed to consider him an +oasis in a desert of otherwise-to-be-deplored, unhuman professors. +Every student organization to which he had belonged as an +undergraduate opened its arms to welcome him as a faculty member; +we chaperoned student parties till we heard rag-time in our sleep. +From January 1 to May 16, we had four nights alone together. You +can know we were desperate. Carl used to say: "We may have to make +it Persia yet."</p> +<p>The red-letter event of that term was when, after about two +months of teaching, President Wheeler rang up one evening about +seven,—one of the four evenings, as it happened, we were at +home together,—and said: "I thought I should like the +pleasure of telling you personally, though you will receive +official notice in the morning, that you have been made an +assistant professor. We expected you to make good, but we did not +expect you to make good to such a degree quite so soon."</p> +<p>Again an occasion for a spree! We tore out hatless across the +campus, nearly demolishing the head of the College of Commerce as +we rounded the Library. He must know the excitement. He was +pleased. He slipped his hand into his pocket saying, "I must have a +hand in this celebration." And with a royal gesture, as who should +say, "What matter the costs!" slipped a dime into Carl's hand. +"Spend it all to-night."</p> +<p>Thus we were started on our assistant professorship. But always +before and always after, to the students Carl was just "Doc."</p> +<p>I remember a story he told of how his chief stopped him one +afternoon at the north gate to the university, and said he was +discouraged and distressed. Carl was getting the reputation of +being popular with the students, and that would never do. "I don't +wish to hear more of such rumors." Just then the remnants of the +internals of a Ford, hung together with picture wire and painted +white, whizzed around the corner. Two slouching, hard-working +"studes" caught sight of Carl, reared up the car, and called, "Hi, +Doc, come on in!" Then they beheld the Head of the Department, +hastily pressed some lever, and went hurrying on. To the Head it +was evidence first-hand. He shook his head and went his way.</p> +<p>Carl was popular with the students, and it is true that he was +too much so. It was not long before he discovered that he was +drawing unto himself the all-too-lightly-handled "college bum," and +he rebelled. Harvard and Germany had given him too high an idea of +scholarship to have even a traditional university patience with the +student who, in the University of California jargon, was "looking +for a meal." He was petitioned by twelve students of the College of +Agriculture to give a course in the Economics of Agriculture, and +they guaranteed him twenty-five students. One hundred and thirty +enrolled, and as Carl surveyed the assortment below him, he +realized that a good half of them did not know and did not want to +know a pear tree from a tractor. He stiffened his upper lip, +stiffened his examinations, and cinched forty of the class. There +should be some Latin saying that would just fit such a case, but I +do not know it. It would start, "Exit ——," and the exit +would refer to the exit of the loafer in large numbers from Carl's +courses and the exit from the heart of the loafer of the absorbing +love he had held for Carl. His troubles were largely over. Someone +else could care for the maimed, the halt, and the blind.</p> +<p>It was about this time, too, that Carl got into difficulties +with the intrenched powers on the campus. He had what has been +referred to as "a passion for justice." Daily the injustice of +campus organization grew on him; he saw democracy held high as an +ideal—lip-homage only. Student affairs were run by an +autocracy which had nothing to justify it except its supporters' +claim of "efficiency." He had little love for that word—it is +usually bought at too great a cost. That year, as usual, he had a +small seminar of carefully picked students. He got them to open +their eyes to conditions as they were. When they ceased to accept +those conditions just because they were, they, too, felt the +inequality, the farce, of a democratic institution run on such +autocratic lines. After seminar hours the group would foregather at +our house to plot as to ways and means. The editor of the campus +daily saw their point of view—I am not sure now that he was +not a member of the seminar.</p> +<p>A slow campaign of education followed. Intrenched powers became +outraged. Fraternities that had invited Carl almost weekly to +lunch, now "couldn't see him." One or two influential alumnæ, +who had something to gain from the established order, took up the +fight. Soon we had a "warning" from one of the Regents that Carl's +efforts on behalf of "democracy" were unwelcome. But within a year +the entire organization of campus politics was altered, and now +there probably is not a student who would not feel outraged at the +suggestion of a return to the old system.</p> +<p>Perhaps here is where I can dwell for a moment on Carl's +particular brand of democracy. I see so much of other kinds. He was +what I should call an utterly unconscious democrat. He never framed +in his own mind any theory of "the brotherhood of man"—he +just lived it, without ever thinking of it as something that needed +expression in words. I never heard him use the term. To him the +Individual was everything—by that I mean that every relation +he had was on a personal basis. He could not go into a shop to buy +a necktie hurriedly, without passing a word with the clerk; when he +paid his fare on the street car, there was a moment's conversation +with the conductor; when we had ice-cream of an evening, he asked +the waitress what was the best thing on in the movies. When we left +Oakland for Harvard, the partially toothless maid we had sobbed +that "Mr. Parker had been more like a brother to her!"</p> +<p>One of the phases of his death which struck home the hardest was +the concern and sorrow the small tradespeople showed—the +cobbler, the plumber, the drug-store clerk. You hear men say: "I +often find it interesting to talk to working-people and get their +view-point." Such an attitude was absolutely foreign to Carl. He +talked to "working-people" because he talked to everybody as he +went along his joyous way. At a track meet or football game, he was +on intimate terms with every one within a conversational radius. +Our wealthy friends would tell us he ruined their +chauffeurs—they got so that they didn't know their places. As +likely as not, he would jolt some constrained bank president by +engaging him in genial conversation without an introduction; at a +formal dinner he would, as a matter of course, have a word or two +with the butler when he passed the cracked crab, although at times +the butlers seemed somewhat pained thereby. Some of Carl's intimate +friends were occasionally annoyed—"He talks to everybody." He +no more could help talking to everybody than he could +help—liking pumpkin-pie. He was born that way. He had one +manner for every human being—President of the University, +students, janitors, society women, cooks, small boys, judges. He +never had any material thing to hand out,—not even cigars, +for he did not smoke himself,—but, as one friend expressed +it, "he radiated generosity."</p> +<p>Heidelberg gives one year after passing the examination to get +the doctor's thesis in final form for publication. The subject of +Carl's thesis was "The Labor Policy of the American Trust." His +first summer vacation after our return to Berkeley, he went on to +Wisconsin, chiefly to see Commons, and then to Chicago, to study +the stockyards at first-hand, and the steel industry. He wrote: +"Have just seen Commons, who was <i>fine</i>. He said: 'Send me as +soon as possible the outline of your thesis and I will pass upon it +according to my lights.' ... He is very interested in one of my +principal subdivisions, i.e. 'Technique and Unionism,' or +'Technique and Labor.' Believes it is a big new consideration." +Again he wrote: "I have just finished working through a book on +'Immigration' by Professor Fairchild of Yale,—437 pages +published three weeks ago,—lent me by Professor Ross. It is +the very book I have been looking for and is <i>superb</i>. I can't +get over how stimulating this looking in on a group of University +men has been. It in itself is worth the trip. I feel sure of my +field of work; that I am not going off in unfruitful directions; +that I am keeping up with the wagon. I am now set on finishing my +book right away—want it out within a year from December." +From Chicago he wrote: "Am here with the reek of the stockyards in +my nose, and just four blocks from them. Here lived, in this house, +Upton Sinclair when he wrote 'The Jungle.'" And Mary McDowell, at +the University Settlement where he was staying, told a friend of +ours since Carl's death about how he came to the table that first +night and no one paid much attention to him—just some young +Westerner nosing about. But by the end of the meal he had the whole +group leaning elbows on the table, listening to everything he had +to say; and she added, "Every one of us loved him from then +on."</p> +<p>He wrote, after visiting Swift's plant, of "seeing illustrations +for all the lectures on technique I have given, and Gee! it felt +good. [I could not quote him honestly and leave out his "gees"] to +actually look at things being done the way one has orated about 'em +being done. The thing for me to do here is to see, and see the +things I'm going to write into my thesis. I want to spend a week, +if I can, digging into the steel industry. With my fine information +about the ore [he had just acquired that], I am anxious to fill out +my knowledge of the operation of smelting and making steel. Then I +can orate industrial dope." Later: "This morning I called on the +Vice-President of the Illinois Steel Company, on the Treasurer of +Armour & Co., and lunched with Mr. Crane of Crane +Co.—Ahem!"</p> +<p>The time we had when it came to the actual printing of the +thesis! It had to be finished by a certain day, in order to make a +certain steamer, to reach Heidelberg when promised. I got in a +corner of a printing-office and read proof just as fast as it came +off the press, while Carl worked at home, under you can guess what +pressure, to complete his manuscript—tearing down with new +batches for me to get in shape for the type-setter, and then racing +home to do more writing. We finished the thesis about one o'clock +one morning, proof-reading and all; and the next day—or that +same day, later—war was declared. Which meant just +this—that the University of Heidelberg sent word that it +would not be safe for Carl to send over his thesis,—there +were about three or four hundred copies to go, according to German +University regulations,—until the situation had quieted down +somewhat. The result was that those three Or four hundred copies +lay stacked up in the printing-office for three or four years, +until at last Carl decided it was not a very good thesis anyway, +and he didn't want any one to see it, and he would write another +brand-new one when peace was declared and it could get safely to +its destination. So he told the printer-man to do away with the +whole batch. This meant that we were out about a hundred and fifty +dollars, oh, luckless thought!—a small fortune to the young +Parkers. So though in a way the thesis as it stands was not meant +for publication, I shall risk quoting from Part One, "The Problem," +so that at least his general approach can be gathered. Remember, +the title was "The Labor Policy of the American Trust."</p> +<p>"When the most astute critic of American labor conditions has +said, 'While immigration continues in great volume, class lines +will be forming and reforming, weak and instable. To prohibit or +greatly restrict immigration would bring forth class conflict +within a generation,' what does it mean?</p> +<p>"President Woodrow Wilson in a statement of his fundamental +beliefs has said: 'Why are we in the presence, why are we at the +threshold, of a revolution? . . . Don't you know that some man with +eloquent tongue, without conscience, who did not care for the +nation, could put this whole country into a flame? Don't you know +that this country, from one end to the other, believes that +something is wrong? What an opportunity it would be for some man +without conscience to spring up and say: "This is the way; follow +me"—and lead in paths of destruction!' What does it mean?</p> +<p>"The problem of the social unrest must seek for its source in +all three classes of society! Two classes are employer and +employee, the third is the great middle class, looking on. What is +the relationship between the dominating employing figure in +American industrial life and the men who work?</p> +<p>"A nation-wide antagonism to trade-unions, to the idea of +collective bargaining between men and employer, cannot spring from +a temperamental aversion of a mere individual, however powerful, be +he Carnegie, Parry, or Post, or from the common opinion in a group +such as the so-called Beef Trust, or the directorate of the United +States Steel Corporation. Such a hostility, characterizing as it +does one of the vitally important relationships in industrial +production, must seek its reason-to-be in economic causes. Profits, +market, financing, are placed in certain jeopardy by such a labor +policy, and this risk is not continued, generation after +generation, as a casual indulgence in temper. Deep below the strong +charges against the unions of narrow self-interest and un-American +limitation of output, dressed by the Citizens' Alliance in the +language of the Declaration of Independence, lies a quiet economic +reason for the hostility. Just as slavery was about to go because +it did not pay, and America stopped building a merchant marine +because it was cheaper to hire England to transport American goods, +so the American Trust, as soon as it had power, abolished the +American trade-union because it found it costly. What then are +these economic causes which account for the hostility?</p> +<p>"What did the union stand in the way of? What conditions did the +trust desire to establish with which the union would interfere? Or +did a labor condition arise which allowed the employer to wreck the +union with such ease, that he turned aside for a moment to do it, +to commit an act desirable only if its performance cost little +danger or money?</p> +<p>"The answer can be found only after an analysis of certain +factors in industrial production. These are three:—</p> +<p>"(<i>a</i>) The control of industrial production. Not only, in +whose hands has industrial capitalism for the moment fallen, but in +what direction does the evolution of control tend?</p> +<p>"(<i>b</i>) The technique of industrial production. Technique, +at times, instead of being a servant, determines by its own +characteristics the character of the labor and the geographical +location of the industry, and even destroys the danger of +competition, if the machinery demanded by it asks for a bigger +capital investment than a raiding competitor will risk.</p> +<p>"(<i>c</i>) The labor market. The labor market can be stationary +as in England, can diminish as in Ireland, or increase as in New +England.</p> +<p>"If the character of these three factors be studied, trust +hostility to American labor-unions can be explained in terms of +economic measure. One national characteristic, however, must be +taken for granted. That is the commercialized business morality +which guides American economic life. The responsibility for the +moral or social effect of an act is so rarely a consideration in a +decision, that it can be here neglected without error. It is not a +factor."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>At the close of his investigation, he took his first vacation in +five years—a canoe-trip up the Brulé with Hal Bradley. +That was one of our dreams that could never come true—a +canoe-trip together. We almost bought the canoe at the +Exposition—we looked holes through the one we wanted. Our +trip was planned to the remotest detail. We never did come into our +own in the matter of our vacations, although no two people could +have more fun in the woods than we. But the combination of small +children and no money and new babies and work—We figured that +in three more years we could be sure of at least one wonderful trip +a year. Anyway, we had the joy of our plannings.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_IX" id="CHAPTER_IX"></a>CHAPTER IX</h2> +<p>The second term in California had just got well under way when +Carl was offered the position of Executive Secretary in the State +Immigration and Housing Commission of California. I remember so +well the night he came home about midnight and told me. I am afraid +the financial end would have determined us, even if the work itself +had small appeal—which, however, was not the case. The salary +offered was $4000. We were getting $1500 at the University. We were +$2000 in debt from our European trip, and saw no earthly chance of +ever paying it out of our University salary. We figured that we +could be square with the world in one year on a $4000 salary, and +then need never be swayed by financial considerations again. So +Carl accepted the new job. It was the wise thing to do anyway, as +matters turned out. It threw him into direct contact for the first +time with the migratory laborer and the I.W.W. It gave him his +first bent in the direction of labor-psychology, which was to +become his intellectual passion, and he was fired with a zeal that +never left him, to see that there should be less unhappiness and +inequality in the world.</p> +<p>The concrete result of Carl's work with the Immigration +Commission was the clean-up of labor camps all over California. +From unsanitary, fly-ridden, dirty makeshifts were developed +ordered sanitary housing accommodations, designed and executed by +experts in their fields. Also he awakened, through countless talks +up and down the State, some understanding of the I.W.W. and his +problem; although, judging from the newspapers nowadays, his work +would seem to have been almost forgotten. As the phrase went, +"Carleton Parker put the migratory on the map."</p> +<p>I think of the Wheatland Hop-Fields riot, or the Ford and Suhr +case, which Carl was appointed to investigate for the Federal +government, as the dramatic incident which focused his attention on +the need of a deeper approach to a sound understanding of labor and +its problems, and which, in turn, justified Mr. Bruère in +stating in the "New Republic": "Parker was the first of our +Economists, not only to analyse the psychology of labor and +especially of casual labor, but also to make his analysis the basis +for an applied technique of industrial and social reconstruction." +Also, that was the occasion of his concrete introduction to the +I.W.W. He wrote an account of it, later, for the "Survey," and an +article on "The California Casual and His Revolt" for the +"Quarterly Journal of Economics," in November, 1915.</p> +<p>It is all interesting enough, I feel, to warrant going into some +detail.</p> +<p>The setting of the riot is best given in the article above +referred to, "The California Casual and His Revolt."</p> +<p>"The story of the Wheatland hop-pickers' riot is as simple as +the facts of it are new and naïve in strike histories. +Twenty-eight hundred pickers were camped on a treeless hill which +was part of the —— ranch, the largest single employer +of agricultural labor in the state. Some were in tents, some in +topless squares of sacking, or with piles of straw. There was no +organization for sanitation, no garbage-disposal. The temperature +during the week of the riot had remained near 105°, and though +the wells were a mile from where the men, women, and children were +picking, and their bags could not be left for fear of theft of the +hops, no water was sent into the fields. A lemonade wagon appeared +at the end of the week, later found to be a concession granted to a +cousin of the ranch owner. Local Wheatland stores were forbidden to +send delivery wagons to the camp grounds. It developed in the state +investigation that the owner of the ranch received half of the net +profits earned by an alleged independent grocery store, which had +been granted the 'grocery concession' and was located in the centre +of the camp ground. . . .</p> +<p>"The pickers began coming to Wheatland on Tuesday, and by Sunday +the irritation over the wage-scale, the absence of water in the +fields, plus the persistent heat and the increasing indignity of +the camp, had resulted in mass meetings, violent talk, and a +general strike.</p> +<p>"The ranch owner, a nervous man, was harassed by the rush of +work brought on by the too rapidly ripening hops, and indignant at +the jeers and catcalls which greeted his appearance near the +meetings of the pickers. Confused with a crisis outside his slender +social philosophy, he acted true to his tradition, and perhaps his +type, and called on a sheriff's posse. What industrial relationship +had existed was too insecure to stand such a procedure. It +disappeared entirely, leaving in control the instincts and vagaries +of a mob on the one hand, and great apprehension and inexperience +on the other.</p> +<p>"As if a stage had been set, the posse arrived in automobiles at +the instant when the officially 'wanted' strike-leader was +addressing a mass meeting of excited men, women, and children. +After a short and typical period of skirmishing and the minor and +major events of arresting a person under such circumstances, a +member of the posse standing outside fired a double-barreled +shot-gun over the heads of the crowd, 'to sober them,' as he +explained it. Four men were killed—two of the posse and two +strikers; the posse fled in their automobiles to the county seat, +and all that night the roads out of Wheatland were filled with +pickers leaving the camp. Eight months later, two hop-pickers, +proved to be the leaders of the strike and its agitation, were +convicted of murder in the first degree and sentenced to life +imprisonment. Their appeal for a new trial was denied."</p> +<p>In his report to the Governor, written in 1914, Carl +characterized the case as follows:—</p> +<p>"The occurrence known as the Wheatland Hop-Fields riot took +place on Sunday afternoon, August 3, 1913. Growing discontent among +the hop-pickers over wages, neglected camp-sanitation and absence +of water in the fields had resulted in spasmodic meetings of +protest on Saturday and Sunday morning, and finally by Sunday noon +in a more or less involuntary strike. At five o'clock on Sunday +about one thousand pickers gathered about a dance pavilion to +listen to speakers. Two automobiles carrying a sheriff's posse +drove up to this meeting, and officials armed with guns and +revolvers attempted to disperse the crowd and to arrest, on a John +Doe warrant, Richard Ford, the apparent leader of the strike. In +the ensuing confusion shooting began and some twenty shots were +fired. Two pickers, a deputy sheriff, and the district attorney of +the county were killed. The posse fled and the camp remained +unpoliced until the State Militia arrived at dawn next morning.</p> +<p>"The occurrence has grown from a casual, though bloody, event in +California labor history into such a focus for discussion and +analysis of the State's great migratory labor-problem that the +incident can well be said to begin, for the commonwealth, a new and +momentous labor epoch.</p> +<p>"The problem of vagrancy; that of the unemployed and the +unemployable; the vexing conflict between the right of agitation +and free speech and the law relating to criminal conspiracy; the +housing and wages of agricultural laborers; the efficiency and +sense of responsibility found in a posse of country deputies; the +temper of the country people faced with the confusion and rioting +of a labor outbreak; all these problems have found a starting point +for their new and vigorous analysis in the Wheatland riot.</p> +<p>In the same report, submitted a year before the "Quarterly +Journal" article, and almost a year before his study of psychology +began, Carl wrote:—</p> +<p>"The manager and part-owner of the ranch is an example of a +certain type of California employer. The refusal of this type to +meet the social responsibilities which come with the hiring of +human beings for labor, not only works concrete and cruelly +unnecessary misery upon a class little able to combat personal +indignity and degradation, but adds fuel to the fire of resentment +and unrest which is beginning to burn in the uncared-for migratory +worker in California. That —— could refuse his clear +duty of real trusteeship of a camp on his own ranch, which +contained hundreds of women and children, is a social fact of +miserable import. The excuses we have heard of unpreparedness, of +alleged ignorance of conditions, are shamed by the proven human +suffering and humiliation repeated each day of the week, from +Wednesday to Sunday. Even where the employer's innate sense of +moral obligation fails to point out his duty, he should have +realized the insanity of stimulating unrest and bitterness in this +inflammable labor force. The riot on the —— ranch is a +California contribution to the literature of the social unrest in +America."</p> +<p>As to the "Legal and Economic Aspects" of the case, again +quoting from the report to the Governor:—</p> +<p>"The position taken by the defense and their sympathizers in the +course of the trial has not only an economic and social bearing, +but many arguments made before the court are distinct efforts to +introduce sociological modifications of the law which will have a +far-reaching effect on the industrial relations of capital and +labor. It is asserted that the common law, on which American +jurisprudence is founded, is known as an ever-developing law, which +must adapt itself to changing economic and social conditions; and, +in this connection, it is claimed that the established theories of +legal causation must be enlarged to include economic and social +factors in the chain of causes leading to a result. Concretely, it +is argued:—</p> +<p>"First, That, when unsanitary conditions lead to discontent so +intense that the crowd can be incited to bloodshed, those +responsible for the unsanitary conditions are to be held legally +responsible for the bloodshed, as well as the actual inciters of +the riot.</p> +<p>"Second, That, if the law will not reach out so far as to hold +the creator of unsanitary, unlivable conditions guilty of +bloodshed, at any rate such conditions excuse the inciters from +liability, because inciters are the involuntary transmitting agents +of an uncontrollable force set in motion by those who created the +unlivable conditions. . . .</p> +<p>"Furthermore, on the legal side, modifications of the law of +property are urged. It is argued that modern law no longer holds +the rights of private property sacred, that these rights are being +constantly regulated and limited, and that in the Wheatland case +the owner's traditional rights in relation to his own lands are to +be held subject to the right of the laborers to organize thereon. +It is urged that a worker on land has a 'property right in his +job,' and that he cannot be made to leave the job, or the land, +merely because he is trying to organize his fellow workers to make +a protest as to living and economic conditions. It is urged that +the organizing worker cannot be made to leave the job because the +job is <i>his</i> property and it is all that he has."</p> +<p>As to "The Remedy":—</p> +<p>"It is obvious that the violent strike methods adopted by the +I.W.W. type agitators, which only incidentally, although +effectively, tend to improve camp conditions, are not to be +accepted as a solution of the problem. It is also obvious that the +conviction of the agitators, such as Ford and Suhr, of murder, is +not a solution, but is only the punishment or revenge inflicted by +organized society for a past deed. The Remedy lies in +prevention.</p> +<p>"It is the opinion of your investigator that the improvement of +living conditions in the labor camps will have the immediate effect +of making the recurrence of impassioned, violent strikes and riots +not only improbable, but impossible; and furthermore, such +improvement will go far towards eradicating the hatred and +bitterness in the minds of the employers and in the minds of the +roving, migratory laborers. This accomplished, the two conflicting +parties will be in a position to meet on a saner, more constructive +basis, in solving the further industrial problems arising between +them. . . .</p> +<p>"They must come to realize that their own laxity in allowing the +existence of unsanitary and filthy conditions gives a much-desired +foothold to the very agitators of the revolutionary I.W.W. +doctrines whom they so dread; they must learn that unbearable, +aggravating living conditions inoculate the minds of the otherwise +peaceful workers with the germs of bitterness and violence, as so +well exemplified at the Wheatland riot, giving the agitators a +fruitful field wherein to sow the seeds of revolt and preach the +doctrine of direct action and sabotage.</p> +<p>"On the other hand, the migratory laborers must be shown that +revolts accompanied by force in scattered and isolated localities +not only involve serious breaches of law and lead to crime, but +that they accomplish no lasting constructive results in advancing +their cause.</p> +<p>"The Commission intends to furnish a clearinghouse to hear +complaints of grievances, of both sides, and act as a mediator or +safety-valve."</p> +<p>In the report to the Governor appear Carl's first writings on +the I.W.W.</p> +<p>"Of this entire labor force at the —— ranch, it +appears that some 100 had been I.W.W. 'card men,' or had had +affiliations with that organization. There is evidence that there +was in this camp a loosely caught together camp local of the +I.W.W., with about 30 active members. It is suggestive that these +30 men, through a spasmodic action, and with the aid of the +deplorable camp conditions, dominated a heterogeneous mass of 2800 +unskilled laborers in 3 days. Some 700 or 800 of the force were of +the 'hobo' class, in every sense potential I.W.W. strikers. At +least 400 knew in a rough way the—for them curiously +attractive—philosophy of the I.W.W., and could also sing some +of its songs.</p> +<p>"Of the 100-odd 'card men' of the I.W.W., some had been through +the San Diego affair, some had been soap-boxers in Fresno, a dozen +had been in the Free Speech fight in Spokane. They sized up the +hop-field as a ripe opportunity, as the principal defendant, +'Blackie' Ford, puts it, 'to start something.' On Friday, two days +after picking began, the practical agitators began working through +the camp. Whether or not Ford came to the —— ranch to +foment trouble seems immaterial. There are five Fords in every camp +of seasonal laborers in California. We have devoted ourselves in +these weeks to such questions as this: 'How big a per cent of +California's migratory seasonal labor force know the technique of +an I.W.W. strike?' 'How many of the migratory laborers know when +conditions are ripe to "start something"?' We are convinced that +among the individuals of every fruit-farm labor group are many +potential strikers. Where a group of hoboes sit around a fire under +a railroad bridge, many of the group can sing I.W.W. songs without +the book. This was not so three years ago. The I.W.W. in California +is not a closely organized body, with a steady membership. The rank +and file know little of the technical organization of industrial +life which their written constitution demands. They listen eagerly +to the appeal for the 'solidarity' of their class. In the +dignifying of vagabondage through their crude but virile song and +verse, in the bitter vilification of the jail turnkey and county +sheriff, in their condemnation of the church and its formal social +work, they find the vindication of their hobo status which they +desire. They cannot sustain a live organization unless they have a +strike or free-speech fight to stimulate their spirit. It is in +their methods of warfare, not in their abstract philosophy or even +hatred of law and judges, that danger lies for organized society. +Since every one of the 5000 laborers in California who have been at +some time connected with the I.W.W. considers himself a 'camp +delegate' with walking papers to organize a camp local, this small +army is watching, as Ford did, for an unsanitary camp or low +wage-scale, to start the strike which will not only create a new +I.W.W. local, but bring fame to the organizer. This common +acceptance of direct action and sabotage as the rule of operation, +the songs and the common vocabulary are, we feel convinced, the +first stirring of a class expression.</p> +<p>"Class solidarity they have not. That may never come, for the +migratory laborer has neither the force nor the vision nor tenacity +to hold long enough to the ideal to attain it. But the I.W.W. is +teaching a method of action which will give this class in violent +flare-ups, such as that at Wheatland, expression.</p> +<p>"The dying away of the organization after the outburst is, +therefore, to be expected. Their social condition is a miserable +one. Their work, even at the best, must be irregular. They have +nothing to lose in a strike, and, as a leader put it, 'A riot and a +chance to blackguard a jailer is about the only intellectual fun we +have.'</p> +<p>"Taking into consideration the misery and physical privation and +the barren outlook of this life of the seasonal worker, the I.W.W. +movement, with all its irresponsible motive and unlawful action, +becomes in reality a class-protest, and the dignity which this +characteristic gives it perhaps alone explains the persistence of +the organization in the field.</p> +<p>"Those attending the protest mass-meeting of the Wheatland +hop-pickers were singing the I.W.W. song 'Mr. Block,' when the +sheriff's posse came up in its automobiles. The crowd had been +harangued by an experienced I.W.W. orator—'Blackie' Ford. +They had been told, according to evidence, to 'knock the blocks off +the scissor-bills.' Ford had taken a sick baby from its mother's +arms and, holding it before the eyes of the 1500 people, had cried +out: 'It's for the life of the kids we're doing this.' Not a +quarter of the crowd was of a type normally venturesome enough to +strike, and yet, when the sheriff went after Ford, he was knocked +down and kicked senseless by infuriated men. In the bloody riot +which then ensued, District Attorney Manwell, Deputy Sheriff +Riordan, a negro Porto Rican and the English boy were shot and +killed. Many were wounded. The posse literally fled, and the camp +remained practically unpoliced until the State Militia arrived at +dawn the next day.</p> +<p>"The question of social responsibility is one of the deepest +significance. The posse was, I am convinced, over-nervous and, +unfortunately, over-rigorous. This can be explained in part by the +state-wide apprehension over the I.W.W.; in part by the normal +California country posse's attitude toward a labor trouble. A +deputy sheriff, at the most critical moment, fired a shot in the +air, as he stated, 'to sober the crowd.' There were armed men in +the crowd, for every crowd of 2000 casual laborers includes a score +of gunmen. Evidence goes to show that even the gentler mountainfolk +in the crowd had been aroused to a sense of personal injury. +——'s automobile had brought part of the posse. +Numberless pickers cling to the belief that the posse was +'——'s police.' When Deputy Sheriff Dakin shot into the +air, a fusillade took place; and when he had fired his last shell, +an infuriated crowd of men and women chased him to the ranch store, +where he was forced to barricade himself. The crowd was dangerous +and struck the first blow. The murderous temper which turned the +crowd into a mob is incompatible with social existence, let alone +social progress. The crowd at the moment of the shooting was a wild +and lawless animal. But to your investigator the important subject +to analyze is not the guilt or innocence of Ford or Suhr, as the +direct stimulators of the mob in action, but to name and +standardize the early and equally important contributors to a +psychological situation which resulted in an unlawful killing. If +this is done, how can we omit either the filth of the hop-ranch, +the cheap gun-talk of the ordinary deputy sheriff, or the +unbridled, irresponsible speech of the soap-box orator?</p> +<p>"Without doubt the propaganda which the I.W.W. had actually +adopted for the California seasonal worker can be, in its fairly +normal working out in law, a criminal conspiracy, and under that +charge, Ford and Suhr have been found guilty of the Wheatland +murder. But the important fact is, that this propaganda will be +carried out, whether unlawful or not. We have talked hours with the +I.W.W. leaders, and they are absolutely conscious of their position +in the eyes of the law. Their only comment is that they are glad, +if it must be a conspiracy, that it is a criminal conspiracy. They +have volunteered the beginning of a cure; it is to clean up the +housing and wage problem of the seasonal worker. The shrewdest +I.W.W. leader we found said: 'We can't agitate in the country +unless things are rotten enough to bring the crowd along.' They +evidently were in Wheatland."</p> +<p>He was high ace with the Wobbly for a while. They invited him to +their Jungles, they carved him presents in jail. I remember a talk +he gave on some phase of the California labor-problem one Sunday +night, at the Congregational church in Oakland. The last three rows +were filled with unshaven hoboes, who filed up afterwards, to the +evident distress of the clean regular church-goers, to clasp his +hand. They withdrew their allegiance after a time, which naturally +in no way phased Carl's scientific interest in them. A paper +hostile to Carl's attitude on the I.W.W. and his insistence on the +clean-up of camps published an article portraying him as a +double-faced individual who feigned an interest in the under-dog +really to undo him, as he was at heart and pocket-book a +capitalist, being the possessor of an independent income of +$150,000 a year. Some I.W.W.'s took this up, and convinced a large +meeting that he was really trying to sell them out. It is not only +the rich who are fickle. Some of them remained his firm friends +always, however. That summer two of his students hoboed it till +they came down with malaria, in the meantime turning in a fund of +invaluable facts regarding the migratory and his life.</p> +<p>A year later, in his article in the "Quarterly Journal," and, be +it remembered, after his study of psychology had begun, Carl +wrote:—</p> +<p>"There is here, beyond a doubt, a great laboring population +experiencing a high suppression of normal instincts and traditions. +There can be no greater perversion of a desirable existence than +this insecure, under-nourished, wandering life, with its sordid +sex-expression and reckless and rare pleasures. Such a life leads +to one of two consequences: either a sinking of the class to a low +and hopeless level, where they become, through irresponsible +conduct and economic inefficiency, a charge upon society; or revolt +and guerrilla labor warfare.</p> +<p>"The migratory laborers, as a class, are the finished product of +an environment which seems cruelly efficient in turning out beings +moulded after all the standards society abhors. Fortunately the +psychologists have made it unnecessary to explain that there is +nothing willful or personally reprehensible in the vagrancy of +these vagrants. Their histories show that, starting with the long +hours and dreary winters of the farms they ran away from, through +their character-debasing experience with irregular industrial +labor, on to the vicious economic life of the winter unemployed, +their training predetermined but one outcome. Nurture has triumphed +over nature; the environment has produced its type. Difficult +though the organization of these people may be, a coincidence of +favoring conditions may place an opportunity in the hands of a +super-leader. If this comes, one can be sure that California will +be both very astonished and very misused."</p> +<p>I was told only recently of a Belgian economics professor, out +here in California during the war, on official business connected +with aviation. He asked at once to see Carl, but was told we had +moved to Seattle. "My colleagues in Belgium asked me to be sure and +see Professor Parker," he said, "as we consider him the one man in +America who understands the problem of the migratory laborer."</p> +<p>That winter Carl got the city of San José to stand behind +a model unemployed lodging-house, one of the two students who had +"hoboed" during the summer taking charge of it. The unemployed +problem, as he ran into it at every turn, stirred Carl to his +depths. At one time he felt it so strongly that he wanted to start +a lodging-house in Berkeley, himself, just to be helping out +somehow, even though it would be only surface help.</p> +<p>It was also about this time that California was treated to the +spectacle of an Unemployed Army, which was driven from pillar to +post,—or, in this case, from town to town,—each trying +to outdo the last in protestations of unhospitality. Finally, in +Sacramento the fire-hoses were turned on the army. At that Carl +flamed with indignation, and expressed himself in no mincing terms, +both to the public and to the reporter who sought his views. He was +no hand to keep clippings, but I did come across one of his milder +interviews in the San Francisco "Bulletin" of March 11, 1914.</p> +<p>"That California's method of handling the unemployed problem is +in accord with the 'careless, cruel and unscientific attitude of +society on the labor question,' is the statement made to-day by +Professor Carleton H. Parker, Assistant Professor of Industrial +economy, and secretary of the State Immigration Committee.</p> +<p>"'There are two ways of looking at this winter's unemployed +problem,' said Dr. Parker; 'one is fatally bad and the other +promises good. One way is shallow and biased; the other strives to +use the simple rules of science for the analysis of any problem. +One way is to damn the army of the unemployed and the +irresponsible, irritating vagrants who will not work. The other way +is to admit that any such social phenomenon as this army is just as +normal a product of our social organization as our own +university.</p> +<p>"'Much street-car and ferry analysis of this problem that I have +overheard seems to believe that this army created its own degraded +self, that a vagrant is a vagrant from personal desire and +perversion. This analysis is as shallow as it is untrue. If +unemployment and vagrancy are the product of our careless, +indifferent society over the half-century, then its cure will come +only by a half-century's careful regretful social labor by this +same tardy society.</p> +<p>"'The riot at Sacramento is merely the appearance of the problem +from the back streets into the strong light. The handling of the +problem there is unhappily in accord with the careless, cruel +attitude of society on this question. We are willing to respect the +anxiety of Sacramento, threatened in the night with this +irresponsible, reckless invasion; but how can the city demand of +vagrants observance of the law, when they drop into mob-assertion +the minute the problem comes up to them?'"</p> +<p>The illustration he always used to express his opinion of the +average solution of unemployment, I quote from a paper of his on +that subject, written in the spring of 1915.</p> +<p>"There is an old test for insanity which is made as follows: the +suspect is given a cup, and is told to empty a bucket into which +water is running from a faucet. If the suspect turns off the water +before he begins to bail out the bucket, he is sane. Nearly all the +current solutions of unemployment leave the faucet running. . . +.</p> +<p>"The heart of the problem, the cause, one might well say, of +unemployment, is that the employment of men regularly or +irregularly is at no time an important consideration of those minds +which control industry. Social organization has ordered it that +these minds shall be interested only in achieving a reasonable +profit in the manufacture and the sale of goods. Society has never +demanded that industries be run even in part to give men +employment. Rewards are not held out for such a policy, and +therefore it is unreasonable to expect such a performance. Though a +favorite popular belief is that we must 'work to live,' we have no +current adage of a 'right to work.' This winter there are shoeless +men and women, closed shoe-factories, and destitute shoemakers; +children in New England with no woolen clothing, half-time woolen +mills, and unemployed spinners and weavers. Why? Simply because the +mills cannot turn out the reasonable business profit; and since +that is the only promise that can galvanize them into activity, +they stand idle, no matter how much humanity finds of misery and +death in this decision. This statement is not a peroration to a +declaration for Socialism. It seems a fair rendering of the +matter-of-fact logic of the analysis.</p> +<p>"It seems hopeless, and also unfair, to expect out-of-work +insurance, employment bureaus, or philanthropy, to counteract the +controlling force of profit-seeking. There is every reason to +believe that profit-seeking has been a tremendous stimulus to +economic activity in the past. It is doubtful if the present great +accumulation of capital would have come into existence without it. +But to-day it seems as it were to be caught up by its own social +consequences. It is hard to escape from the insistence of a +situation in which the money a workman makes in a year fails to +cover the upkeep of his family; and this impairment of the father's +income through unemployment has largely to be met by child-and +woman-labor. The Federal Immigration Commission's report shows that +in not a single great American industry can the average yearly +income of the father keep his family. Seven hundred and fifty +dollars is the bare minimum for the maintenance of the +average-sized American industrial family. The average yearly +earnings of the heads of families working in the United States in +the iron and steel industry is $409; in bituminous coal-mining +$451; in the woolen industry $400; in silk $448; in cotton $470; in +clothing $530; in boots and shoes $573; in leather $511; in +sugar-refining $549; in the meat industry $578; in furniture $598, +etc.</p> +<p>"He who decries created work, municipal lodging-houses, +bread-lines, or even sentimental charity, in the face of the +winter's destitution, has an unsocial soul. The most despicable +thing to-day is the whine of our cities lest their inadequate +catering to their own homeless draw a few vagrants from afar. But +when the agony of our winter makeshifting is by, will a sufficient +minority of our citizens rise and demand that the best technical, +economic, and sociological brains in our wealthy nation devote +themselves with all courage and honesty to the problem of +unemployment?"</p> +<p>Carl was no diplomat, in any sense of the word—above all, +no political diplomat. It is a wonder that the Immigration and +Housing Commission stood behind him as long as it did. He grew +rabid at every political appointment which, in his eyes, hampered +his work. It was evident, so they felt, that he was not tactful in +his relations with various members of the Commission. It all galled +him terribly, and after much consultation at home, he handed in his +resignation. During the first term of his secretaryship, from +October to December, he carried his full-time University work. From +January to May he had a seminar only, as I remember. From August on +he gave no University work at all; so, after asking to have his +resignation from the Commission take effect at once, he had at once +to find something to do to support his family.</p> +<p>This was in October, 1914, after just one year as Executive +Secretary. We were over in Contra Costa County then, on a little +ranch of my father's. Berkeley socially had come to be too much of +a strain, and, too, we wanted the blessed sons to have a real +country experience. Ten months we were there. Three days after Carl +resigned, he was on his way to Phoenix, Arizona,—where there +was a threatened union tie-up,—as United States Government +investigator of the labor situation. He added thereby to his +first-hand stock of labor-knowledge, made a firm friend of Governor +Hunt,—he was especially interested in his prison +policy,—and in those few weeks was the richer by one more of +the really intimate friendships one counts on to the +last—Will Scarlett.</p> +<p>He wrote, on Carl's death, "What a horrible, hideous loss! Any +of us could so easily have been spared; that he, who was of such +value, had to go seems such an utter waste. . . . He was one of +that very, very small circle of men, whom, in the course of our +lives, we come <i>really</i> to love. His friendship meant so +much—though I heard but infrequently from him, there was the +satisfaction of a deep friendship that was <i>always there</i> and +<i>always the same</i>. He would have gone so far! I have looked +forward to a great career for him, and had such pride in him. It's +too hideous!"</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_X" id="CHAPTER_X"></a>CHAPTER X</h2> +<p>In January, 1915, Carl took up his teaching again in real +earnest, commuting to Alamo every night. I would have the boys in +bed and the little supper all ready by the fire; then I would prowl +down the road with my electric torch, to meet him coming home; he +would signal in the distance with his torch, and I with mine. Then +the walk back together, sometimes ankle-deep in mud; then supper, +making the toast over the coals, and an evening absolutely to +ourselves. And never in all our lives did we ask for more joy than +that.</p> +<p>That spring we began building our very own home in Berkeley. The +months in Alamo had made us feel that we could never bear to be in +the centre of things again, nor, for that matter, could we afford a +lot in the centre of things; so we bought high up on the Berkeley +hills, where we could realize as much privacy as was possible, and +yet where our friends could reach us—if they could stand the +climb. The love of a nest we built! We were longer in that house +than anywhere else: two years almost to the day—two years of +such happiness as no other home has ever seen. There, around the +redwood table in the living-room, by the window overlooking the +Golden Gate, we had the suppers that meant much joy to us and I +hope to the friends we gathered around us. There, on the porches +overhanging the very Canyon itself we had our Sunday tea-parties. +(Each time Carl would plead, "I don't have to wear a stiff collar, +do I?" and he knew that I would answer, "You wear anything you +want," which usually meant a blue soft shirt.)</p> +<p>We had a little swimming-tank in back, for the boys.</p> +<p>And then, most wonderful of all, came the day when the June-Bug +was born, the daughter who was to be the very light of her adoring +father's eyes. (Her real name is Alice Lee.) "Mother, there never +really <i>was</i> such a baby, <i>was</i> there?" he would ask ten +times a day. She was not born up on the hill; but in ten days we +were back from the hospital and out day and night through that +glorious July, on some one of the porches overlooking the bay and +the hills. And we added our adored Nurse Balch as a friend of the +family forever.</p> +<p>I always think of Nurse Balch as the person who more than any +other, perhaps, understood to some degree just what happiness +filled our lives day in and day out. No one assumes anything before +a trained nurse—they are around too constantly for that. They +see the misery in homes, they see what joy there is. And Nurse +Balch saw, because she was around practically all the time for six +weeks, that there was nothing but joy every minute of the day in +our home. I do not know how I can make people understand, who are +used to just ordinary happiness, what sort of a life Carl and I +led. It was not just that we got along. It was an active, not a +passive state. There was never a home-coming, say at lunch-time, +that did not seem an event—when our curve of happiness +abruptly rose. Meals were joyous occasions always; perhaps too +scant attention paid to the manners of the young, but much +gurglings, and "Tell some more, daddy," and always detailed +accounts of every little happening during the last few hours of +separation.</p> +<p>Then there was ever the difficulty of good-byes, though it meant +only for a few hours, until supper. And at supper-time he would +come up the front stairs, I waiting for him at the top, perhaps +limping. That was his little joke—we had many little family +jokes. Limping meant that I was to look in every pocket until I +unearthed a bag of peanut candy. Usually he was laden with +bundles—provisions, shoes from the cobbler, a tennis-racket +restrung, and an armful of books. After greetings, always the +question, "How's my June-Bug?" and a family procession upstairs to +peer over a crib at a fat gurgler. And "Mother, there never really +<i>was</i> such a baby, <i>was</i> there?" No, nor such a +father.</p> +<p>It was that first summer back in Berkeley, the year before the +June-Bug was born, when Carl was teaching in Summer School, that we +had our definite enthusiasm over labor-psychology aroused. Will +Ogburn, who was also teaching at Summer School that year, and whose +lectures I attended, introduced us to Hart's "Psychology of +Insanity," several books by Freud, McDougall's "Social Psychology," +etc. I remember Carl's seminar the following spring—his last +seminar at the University of California. He had started with nine +seminar students three years before; now there were thirty-three. +They were all such a superior picked lot, some seniors, mostly +graduates, that he felt there was no one he could ask to stay out. +I visited it all the term, and I am sure that nowhere else on the +campus could quite such heated and excited discussions have been +heard—Carl simply sitting at the head of the table, directing +here, leading there.</p> +<p>The general subject was Labor-Problems. The students had to read +one book a week—such books as Hart's "Psychology of +Insanity," Keller's "Societal Evolution," Holt's "Freudian Wish," +McDougall's "Social Psychology,"—two weeks to +that,—Lippmann's "Preface to Politics," Veblen's "Instinct of +Workmanship," Wallas's "Great Society," Thorndike's "Educational +Psychology," Hoxie's "Scientific Management," Ware's "The Worker +and his Country," G.H. Parker's "Biology and Social Problems," and +so forth—and ending, as a concession to the idealists, with +Royce's "Philosophy of Loyalty."</p> +<p>One of the graduate students of the seminar wrote me: "For three +years I sat in his seminar on Labor-Problems, and had we both been +there ten years longer, each season would have found me in his +class. His influence on my intellectual life was by far the most +stimulating and helpful of all the men I have known. . . . But his +spirit and influence will live on in the lives of those who sat at +his feet and learned."</p> +<p>The seminar was too large, really, for intimate discussion, so +after a few weeks several of the boys asked Carl if they could have +a little sub-seminar. It was a very rushed time for him, but he +said that, if they would arrange all the details, he would save +them Tuesday evenings. So every Tuesday night about a dozen boys +climbed our hill to rediscuss the subject of the seminar of that +afternoon—and everything else under the heavens and beyond. I +laid out ham sandwiches, or sausages, or some edible dear to the +male heart, and coffee to be warmed, and about midnight could be +heard the sounds of banqueting from the kitchen. Three students +told me on graduation that those Tuesday nights at our house had +meant more intellectual stimulus than anything that ever came into +their lives.</p> +<p>One of these boys wrote to me after Carl's death:—</p> +<p>"When I heard that Doc had gone, one of the finest and cleanest +men I have ever had the privilege of associating with, I seemed to +have stopped thinking. It didn't seem possible to me, and I can +remember very clearly of thinking what a rotten world this is when +we have to live and lose a man like Doc. I have talked to two men +who were associated with him in somewhat the same manner as I was, +and we simply looked at one another after the first sentences, and +then I guess the thoughts of a man who had made so much of an +impression on our minds drove coherent speech away. . . . I have +had the opportunity since leaving college of experiencing something +real besides college life and I can't remember during all that +period of not having wondered how Dr. Parker would handle this or +that situation. He was simply immense to me at all times, and if +love of a man-to-man kind does exist, then I truthfully can say +that I had that love for him."</p> +<p>Of the letters received from students of those years I should +like to quote a passage here and there.</p> +<p>An aviator in France writes: "There was no man like him in my +college life. Believe me, he has been a figure in all we do over +here,—we who knew him,—and a reason for our doing, too. +His loss is so great to all of us! . . . He was so fine he will +always push us on to finding the truth about things. That was his +great spark, wasn't it?"</p> +<p>From a second lieutenant in France: "I loved Carl. He was far +more to me than just a friend—he was father, brother, and +friend all in one. He influenced, as you know, everything I have +done since I knew him—for it was his enthusiasm which has +been the force which determined the direction of my work. And the +bottom seemed to have fallen out of my whole scheme of things when +the word just came to me."</p> +<p>From one of the young officers at Camp Lewis: "When +E—— told me about Carl's illness last Wednesday, I +resolved to go and see him the coming week-end. I carried out my +resolution, only to find that I could see neither him nor you. +[This was the day before Carl's death.] It was a great +disappointment to me, so I left some flowers and went away. . . . I +simply could not leave Seattle without seeing Carl once more, so I +made up my mind to go out to the undertaker's. The friends I was +with discouraged the idea, but it was too strong within me. There +was a void within me which could only be filled by seeing my friend +once more. I went out there and stood by his side for quite a +while. I recalled the happy days spent with him on the campus. I +thought of his kindliness, his loyalty, his devotion. Carl Parker +shall always occupy a place in the recesses of my memory as a true +example of nobility. It was hard for me to leave, but I felt much +better."</p> +<p>From one of his women students: "Always from the first day when +I knew him he seemed to give me a joy of life and an inspiration to +work which no other person or thing has ever given me. And it is a +joy and an inspiration I shall always keep. I seldom come to a +stumbling-block in my work that I don't stop to wonder what Carl +Parker would do were he solving that problem."</p> +<p>Another letter I have chosen to quote from was written by a +former student now in Paris:—</p> +<p>"We could not do without him. He meant too much to us. . . . I +come now as a young friend to put myself by your side a moment and +to try to share a great sorrow which is mine almost as much as it +is yours. For I am sure that, after you, there were few indeed who +loved Carl as much as I.</p> +<p>"Oh, I am remembering a hundred things!—the first day I +found you both in the little house on Hearst Avenue—the +dinners we used to have ... the times I used to come on Sunday +morning to find you both, and the youngsters—the day just +before I graduated when mother and I had lunch at your house ... +and, finally, that day I left you, and you said, both of you, +'Don't come back without seeing some of the cities of Europe.' I'd +have missed some of the cities to have come back and found you +both.</p> +<p>"Some of him we can't keep. The quaint old gray +twinkle—the quiet, half-impudent, wholly confident poise with +which he defied all comers—that inexhaustible and +incorrigible fund of humor—those we lose. No use to +whine—we lose it; write it off, gulp, go on.</p> +<p>"But other things we keep, none the less. The stimulus and +impetus and inspiration are not lost, and shall not be. No one has +counted the youngsters he has hauled, by the scruff of the neck as +often as not, out of a slough of middle-class mediocrity, and sent +careering off into some welter or current of ideas and conjecture. +Carl didn't know where they would end, and no more do any of the +rest of us. He knew he loathed stagnation. And he stirred things +and stirred people. And the end of the stirring is far from being +yet known or realized."</p> +<p>I like, too, a story one of the Regents told me. He ran into a +student from his home town and asked how his work at the University +was going. The boy looked at him eagerly and said, "Mr. +M——, I've been born again! ["Born again"—those +were his very words.] I entered college thinking of it as a +preparation for making more money when I got out. I've come across +a man named Parker in the faculty and am taking everything he +gives. Now I know I'd be selling out my life to make money the +goal. I know now, too, that whatever money I do make can never be +at the expense of the happiness and welfare of any other human +being."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XI" id="CHAPTER_XI"></a>CHAPTER XI</h2> +<p>About this time we had a friend come into our lives who was +destined to mean great things to the Parkers—Max Rosenberg. +He had heard Carl lecture once or twice, had met him through our +good friend Dr. Brown, and a warm friendship had developed. In the +spring of 1916 we were somewhat tempted by a call to another +University—$1700 was really not a fortune to live on, and to +make both ends meet and prepare for the June-Bug's coming, Carl had +to use every spare minute lecturing outside. It discouraged him, +for he had no time left to read and study. So when a call came that +appealed to us in several ways, besides paying a much larger +salary, we seriously considered it. About then "Uncle Max" rang up +from San Francisco and asked Carl to see him before answering this +other University, and an appointment was made for that +afternoon.</p> +<p>I was to be at a formal luncheon, but told Carl to be sure to +call me up the minute he left Max—we wondered so hard what he +might mean. And what he did mean was the most wonderful idea that +ever entered a friend's head. He felt that Carl had a real message +to give the world, and that he should write a book. He also +realized that it was impossible to find time for a book under the +circumstances. Therefore he proposed that Carl should take a year's +leave of absence and let Max finance him—not only just +finance him, but allow for a trip throughout the East for him to +get the inspiration of contact with other men in his field; and +enough withal, so that there should be no skimping anywhere and the +little family at home should have everything they needed.</p> +<p>It seemed to us something too wonderful to believe. I remember +going back to that lunch-table, after Carl had telephoned me only +the broadest details, wondering if it were the same world. That +Book—we had dreamed of writing that book for so many +years—the material to be in it changed continually, but +always the longing to write, and no time, no hopes of any chance to +do it. And the June-Bug coming, and more need for money—hence +more outside lectures than ever. I have no love for the University +of California when I think of that $1700. (I quote from an article +that came out in New York: "It is an astounding fact which his +University must explain, that he, with his great abilities as +teacher and leader, his wide travel and experience and training, +received from the University in his last year of service there a +salary of $1700 a year! The West does not repay commercial genius +like that.") For days after Max's offer we hardly knew we were on +earth. It was so very much the most wonderful thing that could have +happened to us. Our friends had long ago adopted the phrase "just +Parker luck," and here was an example if there ever was one. +"Parker luck" indeed it was!</p> +<p>This all meant, to get the fulness out of it, that Carl must +make a trip of at least four months in the East. At first he +planned to return in the middle of it and then go back again; but +somehow four months spent as we planned it out for him seemed so +absolutely marvelous,—an opportunity of a +lifetime,—that joy for him was greater in my soul than the +dread of a separation. It was different from any other parting we +had ever had. I was bound that I would not shed a single tear when +I saw him off, even though it meant the longest time apart we had +experienced. Three nights before he left, being a bit blue about +things, for all our fine talk, we prowled down our hillside and +found our way to our first Charlie Chaplin film. We laughed until +we cried—we really did. So that night, seeing Carl off, we +went over that Charlie Chaplin film in detail and let ourselves +think and talk of nothing else. We laughed all over again, and Carl +went off laughing, and I waved good-bye laughing. Bless that +Charlie Chaplin film!</p> +<p>It would not take much imagination to realize what that trip +meant to Carl—and through him to me. From the time he first +felt the importance of the application of modern psychology to the +study of economics, he became more and more intellectually isolated +from his colleagues. They had no interest in, no sympathy for, no +understanding of, what he was driving at. From May, when college +closed, to October, when he left for the East, he read +prodigiously. He had a mind for assimilation—he knew where to +store every new piece of knowledge he acquired, and kept thereby an +orderly brain. He read more than a book a week: everything he could +lay hands on in psychology, anthropology, biology, philosophy, +psycho-analysis—every field which he felt contributed to his +own growing conviction that orthodox economics had served its day. +And how he gloried in that reading! It had been years since he had +been able to do anything but just keep up with his daily lectures, +such was the pressure he was working under. Bless his heart, he was +always coming across something that was just too good to hold in, +and I would hear him come upstairs two steps at a time, bolt into +the kitchen, and say: "Just listen to this!" And he would read an +extract from some new-found treasure that would make him glow.</p> +<p>But outside of myself,—and I was only able to keep up with +him by the merest skimmings,—and one or two others at most, +there was no one who understood what he was driving at. As his +reading and convictions grew, he waxed more and more outraged at +the way Economics was handled in his own University. He saw student +after student having every ounce of intellectual curiosity ground +out of them by a process of economic education that would stultify +a genius. Any student who continued his economic studies did so in +spite of the introductory work, not because he had had one little +ounce of enthusiasm aroused in his soul. Carl would walk the floor +with his hands in his pockets when kindred spirits—especially +students who had gone through the mill, and as seniors or graduates +looked back outraged at certain courses they had had to flounder +through—brought up the subject of Economics at the University +of California.</p> +<p>Off he went then on his pilgrimage,—his Research +Magnificent,—absolutely unknown to almost every man he hoped +to see before his return. The first stop he made was at Columbia, +Missouri, to see his idol Veblen. He quaked a bit +beforehand,—had heard Veblen might not see him,—but the +second letter from Missouri began, "Just got in after thirteen +hours with Veblen. It went wonderfully and I am tickled to death. +He O.K.s my idea entirely and said I could not go wrong. . . . Gee, +but it is some grand experience to go up against him."</p> +<p>In the next letter he told of a graduate student who came out to +get his advice regarding a thesis-subject in labor. "I told him to +go to his New England home and study the reaction of +machine-industry on the life of the town. That is a typical Veblen +subject. It scared the student to death, and Veblen chuckled over +my advice." In Wisconsin he was especially anxious to see Guyer. Of +his visit with him he wrote: "It was a whiz of a session. He is +just my meat." At Yale he saw Keller. "He is a wonder and is going +to do a lot for me in criticism."</p> +<p>Then began the daily letters from New York, and every single +letter—not only from New York but from every other place he +happened to be in: Baltimore, Philadelphia, Cambridge—told of +at least one intellectual Event—with a capital E—a day. +No one ever lived who had a more stimulating experience. Friends +would ask me: "What is the news from Carl?" And I would just gasp. +Every letter was so full of the new influences coming into his +life, that it was impossible to give even an idea of the history in +the making that was going on with the Parkers.</p> +<p>In the first days in New York he saw T.H. Morgan. "I just walked +in on him and introduced myself baldly, and he is a corker. A +remarkable talker, with a mind like a flash. I am to see him again. +To-morrow will be a big day for me—I'll see Hollingworth, and +very probably Thorndike, and I'll know then something of what I'll +get out of New York." Next day: "Called on Hollingworth to-day. He +gave me some invaluable data and opinions. . . . To-morrow I see +Thorndike." And the next day: "I'm so joyful and excited over +Thorndike. He was so enthusiastic over my work. . . . He at once +had brass-tack ideas. Said I was right—that strikes usually +started because of small and very human violations of man's innate +dispositions."</p> +<p>Later he called on Professor W.C. Mitchell. "He went into my +thesis very fully and is all for it. Professor Mitchell knows more +than any one the importance of psychology to economics and he is +all for my study. Gee, but I get excited after such a session. I +bet I'll get out a real book, my girl!"</p> +<p>After one week in New York he wrote: "The trip has paid for +itself now, and I'm dead eager to view the time when I begin my +writing." Later: "Just got in from a six-hour session with the most +important group of employers in New York. I sat in on a meeting of +the Building Trades Board where labor delegates and employers +appeared. After two hours of it (awfully interesting) the Board +took me to dinner and we talked labor stuff till ten-thirty. Gee, +it was fine, and I got oceans of stuff."</p> +<p>Then came Boas, and more visits with Thorndike. "To-night I put +in six hours with Thorndike, and am pleased plum to death. . . . +Under his friendly stimulus I developed a heap of new ideas; and +say, wait till I begin writing! I'll have ten volumes at the +present rate. . . . This visit with Thorndike was worth the whole +trip." (And in turn Thorndike wrote me: "The days that he and I +spent together in New York talking of these things are one of my +finest memories and I appreciate the chance that let me meet him.") +He wrote from the Harvard Club, where Walter Lippmann put him up: +"The Dad is a 'prominent clubman.' Just lolled back at lunch, in a +room with animals (stuffed) all around the walls, and waiters +flying about, and a ceiling up a mile. Gee!" Later: "I just had a +most wonderful visit with the Director of the National Committee +for Mental Hygiene, Dr. Solman, and he is a wiz, a wiz!"</p> +<p>Next day: "Had a remarkable visit with Dr. Gregory this A.M. He +is one of the greatest psychiatrists in New York and up on +balkings, business tension, and the mental effect of monotonous +work. He was so worked up over my explanation of unrest (a mental +status) through instinct-balkings other than sex, that he asked if +I would consider using his big psychopathic ward as a laboratory +field for my own work. Then he dated me up for a luncheon at which +three of the biggest mental specialists in New York will be +present, to talk over the manner in which psychiatry will aid my +research! I can't say how tickled I am over his attitude." Next +letter: "At ten reached Dr. Pierce Bailey's, the big psychiatrist, +and for an hour and a half we talked, and I was simply tickled to +death. He is really a wonder and I was very enthused. . . . Before +leaving he said: 'You come to dinner Friday night here and I will +have Dr. Paton from Princeton and I'll get in some more to meet +you.' ... Then I beat it to the 'New Republic' offices, and sat +down to dinner with the staff plus Robert Bruère, and the +subject became 'What is a labor policy?' The Dad, he did his share, +he did, and had a great row with Walter Lippmann and Bruère. +Walter Lippmann said: 'This won't do—you have made me doubt a +lot of things. You come to lunch with me Friday at the Harvard Club +and we'll thrash it all out.' Says I, 'All right!' Then says Croly, +'This won't do; we'll have a dinner here the following Monday +night, and I'll get Felix Frankfurter down from Boston, and we'll +thrash it out some more!' Says I, 'All right!' And says Mr. Croly, +private, 'You come to dinner with us on Sunday!'—'All right,' +sez Dad. Dr. Gregory has me with Dr. Solman on Monday, and Harry +Overstreet on Wednesday, Thorndike on Saturday, and gee, but I'll +beat it for New Haven on Thursday, or I'll die of up-torn +brain."</p> +<p>Are you realizing what this all meant to my Carl—until +recently reading and pegging away unencouraged in his basement +study up on the Berkeley hills?</p> +<p>The next day he heard Roosevelt at the Ritz-Carton. "Then I +watched that remarkable man wind the crowd almost around his +finger. It was great, and pure psychology; and say, fool women and +some fool men; but T.R. went on blithely as if every one was an +intellectual giant." That night a dinner with Winston Churchill. +Next letter: "Had a simply superb talk with Hollingworth for two +and a half hours this afternoon. . . . The dinner was the four +biggest psychiatrists in New York and Dad. Made me simply yell, it +did. . . . It was for my book simply superb. All is going so +wonderfully." Next day: "Now about the Thorndike dinner: it was +grand. . . . I can't tell you how much these talks are maturing my +ideas about the book. I think in a different plane and am certain +that my ideas are surer. There have come up a lot of odd problems +touching the conflict, so-called, between intelligence and +instinct, and these I'm getting thrashed out grandly." After the +second "New Republic" dinner he wrote: "Lots of important people +there ... Felix Frankfurter, two judges, and the two Goldmarks, +Pierce Bailey, etc., and the whole staff. . . . Had been all day +with Dr. Gregory and other psychiatrists and had met Police +Commissioner Woods ... a wonderfully rich day. . . . I must run for +a date with Professor Robinson and then to meet Howe, the +Immigration Commissioner."</p> +<p>Then a trip to Ellis Island, and at midnight that same date he +wrote: "Just had a most truly remarkable—eight-thirty to +twelve—visit with Professor Robinson, he who wrote that +European history we bought in Germany." Then a trip to +Philadelphia, being dined and entertained by various members of the +Wharton School faculty. Then the Yale-Harvard game, followed by +three days and two nights in the psychopathic ward at Sing Sing. "I +found in the psychiatrist at the prison a true wonder—Dr. +Glueck. He has a viewpoint on instincts which differs from any one +that I have met." The next day, back in New York: "Just had a most +remarkable visit with Thomas Mott Osborne." Later in the same day: +"Just had an absolutely grand visit and lunch with Walter Lippmann +... it was about the best talk with regard to my book that I have +had in the East. He is an intellectual wonder and a big, +good-looking, friendly boy. I'm for him a million."</p> +<p>Then his visit with John Dewey. "I put up to him my regular +questions—the main one being the importance of the conflict +between MacDougall and the Freudians. . . . He was cordiality +itself. I am expecting red-letter days with him. My knowledge of +the subject is increasing fast." Then a visit with Irving Fisher at +New Haven. The next night "was simply remarkable." Irving Fisher +took him to a banquet in New York, in honor of some French +dignitaries, with President Wilson present—"at seven dollars +a plate!" As to President Wilson, "He was simply great—almost +the greatest, in fact is the greatest, speaker I have ever +heard."</p> +<p>Then a run down to Cambridge, every day crammed to the edges. +"Had breakfast with Felix Frankfurter. He has the grand spirit and +does so finely appreciate what my subject means. He walked me down +to see a friend of his, Laski, intellectually a sort of +marvel—knows psychology and philosophy cold—grand talk. +Then I called on Professor Gay and he dated me for a dinner +to-morrow night. Luncheon given to me by Professor +Taussig—that was <i>fine</i>. . . . Then I flew to see E.B. +Holt for an hour [his second visit there]. Had a grand visit, and +then at six was taken with Gay to dinner with the visiting Deans at +the Boston Harvard Club." (Mr. Holt wrote: "I met Mr. Parker +briefly in the winter of 1916-17, briefly, but so very +delightfully! I felt that he was an ally and a brilliant one.")</p> +<p>I give these many details because you must appreciate what this +new wonder-world meant to a man who was considered nobody much by +his own University.</p> +<p>Then one day a mere card: "This is honestly a day in which no +two minutes of free time exist—so superbly grand has it gone +and so fruitful for the book—the best of all yet. One of the +biggest men in the United States (Cannon of Harvard) asked me to +arrange my thesis to be analyzed by a group of experts in the +field." Next day he wrote: "Up at six-forty-five, and at +seven-thirty I was at Professor Cannon's. I put my thesis up to him +strong and got one of the most encouraging and stimulating +receptions I have had. He took me in to meet his wife, and said: +'This young man has stimulated and aroused me greatly. We must get +his thesis formally before a group.'" Later, from New York: "From +seven-thirty to eleven-thirty I argued with Dr. A.A. Brill, who +translated all of Freud!!! and it was simply wonderful. I came home +at twelve and wrote up a lot."</p> +<p>Later he went to Washington with Walter Lippmann. They ran into +Colonel House on the train, and talked foreign relations for two +and a half hours. "My hair stood on end at the importance of what +he said." From Washington he wrote: "Am having one of the Great +Experiences of my young life." Hurried full days in Philadelphia, +with a most successful talk before the University of Pennsylvania +Political and Social Science Conference ("Successful," was the +report to me later of several who were present), and extreme +kindness and hospitality from all the Wharton group. He rushed to +Baltimore, and at midnight, December 31, he wrote: "I had from +eleven-thirty to one P.M. an absolute supergrand talk with Adolph +Meyer and John Watson. He is a grand young southerner and simply +knows his behavioristic psychology in a way to make one's hair +stand up. We talked my plan clear out and they are +<i>enthusiastic</i>. . . . Things are going <i>grandly</i>." Next +day: "Just got in from dinner with Adolph Meyer. He is simply a +wonder. . . . At nine-thirty I watched Dr. Campbell give a girl +Freudian treatment for a suicide mania. She had been a worker in a +straw-hat factory and had a true industrial psychosis—the +kind I am looking for." Then, later: "There is absolutely no doubt +that the trip has been my making. I have learned a lot of +background, things, and standards, that will put their stamp on my +development."</p> +<p>Almost every letter would tell of some one visit which "alone +was worth the trip East." Around Christmastime home-longings got +extra strong—he wrote five letters in three days. I really +wish I could quote some from them—where he said for instance: +"My, but it is good for a fellow to be with his family and awful to +be away from it." And again: "I want to be interrupted, I do. I'm +all for that. I remember how Jim and Nand used to come into my +study for a kiss and then go hastily out upon urgent affairs. I'm +for that. . . . I've got my own folk and they make the rest of the +world thin and pale. The blessedness of babies is beyond words, but +the blessedness of a wife is such that one can't start in on +it."</p> +<p>Then came the Economic-Convention at Columbus—letters too +full to begin to quote from them. "I'm simply having the time of my +life ... every one is here." In a talk when he was asked to fill in +at the last minute, he presented "two arguments why trade-unions +alone could not be depended on to bring desirable change in working +conditions through collective bargaining: one, because they were +numerically so few in contrast to the number of industrial workers, +and, two, because the reforms about to be demanded were technical, +medical, and generally of scientific character, and skilled experts +employed by the state would be necessary."</p> +<p>Back again in New York, he wrote: "It just raises my hair to +feel I'm not where a Dad ought to be. My blessed, precious family! +I tell you there isn't anything in this world like a wife and +babies and I'm for that life that puts me close. I'm near smart +enough to last a heap of years. Though when I see how my trip makes +me feel alive in my head and enthusiastic, I know it has been worth +while. . . ." Along in January he worked his thesis up in writing. +"Last night I read my paper to the Robinsons after the dinner and +they had Mr. and Mrs. John Dewey there. A most superb and grand +discussion followed, the Deweys going home at eleven-thirty and I +stayed to talk to one A.M. I slept dreaming wildly of the +discussion. . . . Then had an hour and a half with Dewey on certain +moot points. That talk was even more superb and resultful to me and +I'm just about ready to quit. . . . I need now to write and +read."</p> +<p>I quote a bit here and there from a paper written in New York in +1917, because, though hurriedly put together and never meant for +publication, it describes Carl's newer approach to Economics and +especially to the problem of Labor.</p> +<p>"In 1914 I was asked to investigate a riot among 2800 migratory +hop-pickers in California which had resulted in five deaths, +many-fold more wounded, hysteria, fear, and a strange orgy of +irresponsible persecution by the county authorities—and, on +the side of the laborers, conspiracy, barn-burnings, sabotage, and +open revolutionary propaganda. I had been teaching labor-problems +for a year, and had studied them in two American universities, +under Sidney Webb in London, and in four universities of Germany. I +found that I had no fundamentals which could be called good tools +with which to begin my analysis of this riot. And I felt myself +merely a conventional if astonished onlooker before the +theoretically abnormal but manifestly natural emotional activity +which swept over California. After what must have been a most usual +intellectual cycle of, first, helplessness, then conventional +cataloguing, some rationalizing, some moralizing, and an extensive +feeling of shallowness and inferiority, I called the job done.</p> +<p>"By accident, somewhat later, I was loaned two books of Freud, +and I felt after the reading, that I had found a scientific +approach which might lead to the discovery of important +fundamentals for a study of unrest and violence. Under this +stimulation, I read, during a year and a half, general psychology, +physiology and anthropology, eugenics, all the special material I +could find on Mendelism, works on mental hygiene, feeblemindedness, +insanity, evolution of morals and character, and finally found a +resting-place in a field which seems to be best designated as +Abnormal and Behavioristic Psychology. My quest throughout this +experience seemed to be pretty steadily a search for those +irreducible fundamentals which I could use in getting a technically +decent opinion on that riot. In grand phrases, I was searching for +the Scientific Standard of Value to be used in analyzing Human +Behavior.</p> +<p>"Economics (which officially holds the analysis of +labor-problems) has been allowed to devote itself almost entirely +to the production of goods, and to neglect entirely the consumption +of goods and human organic welfare. The lip-homage given by +orthodox economics to the field of consumption seems to be inspired +merely by the feeling that disaster might overcome production if +workers were starved or business men discouraged. . . . So, while +official economic science tinkers at its transient institutions +which flourish in one decade and pass out in the next, abnormal and +behavioristic psychology, physiology, psychiatry, are building in +their laboratories, by induction from human specimens of modern +economic life, a standard of human values and an elucidation of +behavior fundamentals which alone we must use in our legislative or +personal modification of modern civilization. It does not seem an +overstatement to say that orthodox economics has cleanly overlooked +two of the most important generalizations about human life which +can be phrased, and those are,—</p> +<p>"That human life is dynamic, that change, movement, evolution, +are its basic characteristics.</p> +<p>"That self-expression, and therefore freedom of choice and +movement, are prerequisites to a satisfying human state."</p> +<p>After giving a description of the instincts he +writes:—</p> +<p>"The importance to me of the following description of the innate +tendencies or instincts lies in their relation to my main +explanation of economic behavior which is,—</p> +<p>"First, that these tendencies are persistent, are far less +warped or modified by the environment than we believe; that they +function quite as they have for several hundred thousand years; +that they, as motives, in their various normal or perverted +habit-form, can at times dominate singly the entire behavior, and +act as if they were a clear character dominant.</p> +<p>"Secondly, that if the environment through any of the +conventional instruments of repression, such as religious +orthodoxy, university mental discipline, economic inferiority, +imprisonment, physical disfigurement,—such as short stature, +hare-lip, etc.,—repress the full psychological expression in +the field of these tendencies, then a psychic revolt, slipping into +abnormal mental functioning, takes place, and society accuses the +revolutionist of being either willfully inefficient, alcoholic, a +syndicalist, supersensitive, an agnostic, or insane."</p> +<p>I hesitate somewhat to give his programme as set forth in this +paper. I have already mentioned that it was written in the spring +of 1917, and hurriedly. In referring to this very paper in a letter +from New York, he said, "Of course it is written in part <i>to call +out</i> comments, and so the statements are strong and unmodified." +Let that fact, then, be borne in mind, and also the fact that he +may have altered his views somewhat in the light of his further +studies and readings—although again, such studies may only +have strengthened the following ideas. I cannot now trust to my +memory for what discussions we may have had on the subject.</p> +<p>"Reform means a militant minority, or, to follow Trotter, a +small Herd. This little Herd would give council, relief, and +recuperation to its members. The members of the Herd will be under +merciless fire from the convention-ridden members of general +society. They will be branded outlaws, radicals, agnostics, +impossible, crazy. They will be lucky to be out of jail most of the +time. They will work by trial and study, gaining wisdom by their +errors, as Sidney Webb and the Fabians did. In the end, after a +long time, parts of the social sham will collapse, as it did in +England, and small promises will become milestones of progress.</p> +<p>"From where, then, can we gain recruits for this minority? Two +real sources seem in existence—the universities and the field +of mental-disease speculation and hospital experiment. The one, the +universities, with rare if wonderful exceptions, are fairly +hopeless; the other is not only rich in promise, but few realize +how full in performance. Most of the literature which is gripping +that great intellectual no-man's land of the silent readers, is +basing its appeal, and its story, on the rather uncolored and bald +facts which come from Freud, Trotter, Robinson, Dewey, E.B. Holt, +Lippmann, Morton Prince, Pierce, Bailey, Jung, Hart, Overstreet, +Thorndike, Campbell, Meyer and Watson, Stanley Hall, Adler, White. +It is from this field of comparative or abnormal psychology that +the challenge to industrialism and the programme of change will +come.</p> +<p>"But suppose you ask me to be concrete and give an idea of such +a programme.</p> +<p>"Take simply the beginning of life, take childhood, for that is +where the human material is least protected, most plastic, and +where most injury to-day is done. In the way of general suggestion, +I would say, exclude children from formal disciplinary life, such +as that of all industry and most schools, up to the age of +eighteen. After excluding them, what shall we do with them? Ask +John Dewey, I suggest, or read his 'Schools of To-morrow,' or +'Democracy and Education.' It means tremendous, unprecedented money +expense to ensure an active trial and error-learning activity; a +chance naturally to recapitulate the racial trial and +error-learning experience; a study and preparation of those periods +of life in which fall the ripening of the relatively late maturing +instincts; a general realizing that wisdom can come only from +experience, and not from the Book. It means psychologically +calculated childhood opportunity, in which the now stifled +instincts of leadership, workmanship, hero-worship, hunting, +migration, meditation, sex, could grow and take their foundation +place in the psychic equipment of a biologically promising human +being. To illustrate in trivialities, no father, with knowledge of +the meaning of the universal bent towards workmanship, would give +his son a puzzle if he knew of the Mecano or Erector toys, and no +father would give the Mecano if he had grasped the educational +potentiality of the gift to his child of $10 worth of lumber and a +set of good carpenter's tools. There is now enough loose wisdom +around devoted to childhood, its needed liberties and experiences, +both to give the children of this civilization their first +evolutionary chance, and to send most teachers back to the +farm.</p> +<p>"In the age-period of 18 to 30 would fall that +pseudo-educational monstrosity, the undergraduate university, and +the degrading popular activities of 'beginning a business' or +'picking up a trade.' Much money must be spent here. Perhaps few +fields of activity have been conventionalized as much as university +education. Here, just where a superficial theorist would expect to +find enthusiasm, emancipated minds, and hope, is found fear, +convention, a mean instinct-life, no spirit of adventure, little +curiosity, in general no promise of preparedness. No wonder +philosophical idealism flourishes and Darwin is forgotten.</p> +<p>"The first two years of University life should be devoted to the +Science of Human Behavior. Much of to-day's biology, zoölogy, +history, if it is interpretive, psychology, if it is behavioristic, +philosophy, if it is pragmatic, literature, if it had been written +involuntarily, would find its place here. The last two years could +be profitably spent in appraising with that ultimate standard of +value gained in the first two years, the various institutions and +instruments used by civilized man. All instruction would be +objective, scientific, and emancipated from +convention—wonderful prospect!</p> +<p>"In industrial labor and in business employments a new concept, +a new going philosophy must be unreservedly accepted, which has, +instead of the ideal of forcing the human beings to mould their +habits to assist the continued existence of the inherited order of +things, an ideal of moulding all business institutions and ideas of +prosperity in the interests of scientific evolutionary aims and +large human pleasures. As Pigou has said, 'Environment has its +children as well as men.' Monotony in labor, tedium in officework, +time spent in business correspondence, the boredom of running a +sugar refinery, would be asked to step before the bar of human +affairs and get a health standardization. To-day industry produces +goods that cost more than they are worth, are consumed by persons +who are degraded by the consuming; it is destroying permanently the +raw-material source which, science has painfully explained, could +be made inexhaustible. Some intellectual revolution must come which +will <i>de</i>-emphasize business and industry and +<i>re</i>-emphasize most other ways of self-expression.</p> +<p>"In Florence, around 1300, Giotto painted a picture, and the day +it was to be hung in St. Mark's, the town closed down for a +holiday, and the people, with garlands of flowers and songs, +escorted the picture from the artist's studio to the church. Three +weeks ago I stood, in company with 500 silent, sallow-faced men, at +a corner on Wall Street, a cold and wet corner, till young Morgan +issued from J.P. Morgan & Company, and walked 20 feet to his +carriage.—We produce, probably, per capita, 1000 times more +in weight of ready-made clothing, Irish lace, artificial flowers, +terra cotta, movie-films, telephones, and printed matter than those +Florentines did, but we have, with our 100,000,000 inhabitants, yet +to produce that little town, her Dante, her Andrea del Sarto, her +Michael Angelo, her Leonardo da Vinci, her Savonarola, her Giotto, +or the group who followed Giotto's picture. Florence had a +marvelous energy—re-lease experience. All our industrial +formalism, our conventionalized young manhood, our schematized +universities, are instruments of balk and thwart, are machines to +produce protesting abnormality, to block efficiency. So the problem +of industrial labor is one with the problem of the discontented +business man, the indifferent student, the unhappy wife, the +immoral minister—it is one of maladjustment between a fixed +human nature and a carelessly ordered world. The result is +suffering, insanity, racial-perversion, and danger. The final cure +is gaining acceptance for a new standard of morality; the first +step towards this is to break down the mores-inhibitions to free +experimental thinking."</p> +<p>If only the time had been longer—if only the Book itself +could have been finished! For he <i>had</i> a great message. He was +writing about a thousand words a day on it the following summer, at +Castle Crags, when the War Department called him into mediation +work and not another word did he ever find time to add to it. It +stands now about one third done. I shall get that third ready for +publication, together with some of his shorter articles. There have +been many who have offered their services in completing the Book, +but the field is so new, Carl's contribution so unique, that few +men in the whole country understand the ground enough to be of +service. It was not so much to be a book on Labor as on +Labor-Psychology—and that is almost an unexplored field.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XII" id="CHAPTER_XII"></a>CHAPTER XII</h2> +<p>Three days after Carl started east, on his arrival in Seattle, +President Suzzallo called him to the University of Washington as +Head of the Department of Economics and Dean of the College of +Business Administration, his work to begin the following autumn. It +seemed an ideal opportunity. He wrote: "I am very, very attracted +by Suzzallo. . . . He said that I should be allowed to plan the +work as I wished and call the men I wished, and could call at least +five. I cannot imagine a better man to work with nor a better +proposition than the one he put up to me. . . . The job itself will +let me teach what I wish and in my own way. I can give Introductory +Economics, and Labor, and Industrial Organization, etc." Later, he +telegraphed from New York, where he had again seen Suzzallo: "Have +accepted Washington's offer. . . . Details of job even more +satisfactory than before."</p> +<p>So, sandwiched in between all the visits and interviews over the +Book, were many excursions about locating new men for the +University of Washington. I like to think of what the three +Pennsylvania men he wanted had to say about him. Seattle seemed +very far away to them—they were doubtful, very. Then they +heard the talk before the Conference referred to above, and every +one of the three accepted his call. As one of them expressed it to +his wife later: "I'd go anywhere for that man." Between that +Seattle call and his death there were eight universities, some of +them the biggest in the country, which wished Carl Parker to be on +their faculties. One smaller university held out the presidency to +him. Besides this, there were nine jobs outside of University work +that were offered him, from managing a large mine to doing research +work in Europe. He had come into his own.</p> +<p>It was just before we left Berkeley that the University of +California asked Carl to deliver an address, explaining his +approach to economics. It was, no doubt, the most difficult talk he +ever gave. There under his very nose sat his former colleagues, his +fellow members in the Economics Department, and he had to stand up +in public and tell them just how inadequate he felt most of their +teaching to be. The head of the Department came in a trifle late +and left immediately after the lecture. He could hardly have been +expected to include himself in the group who gathered later around +Carl to express their interest in his stand. I shall quote a bit +from this paper to show Carl's ideas on orthodox economics.</p> +<p>"This brings one to perhaps the most costly delinquency of +modern Economics, and that is its refusal to incorporate into its +weighings and appraisals the facts and hypotheses of modern +psychology. Nothing in the postulates of the science of Economics +is as ludicrous as its catalogue of human wants. Though the +practice of ascribing 'faculties' to man has been passed by +psychology into deserved discard, Economics still maintains, as +basic human qualities, a galaxy of vague and rather spiritual +faculties. It matters not that, in the place of the primitive +concepts of man stimulated to activity by a single trucking sense, +or a free and uninfluenced force called a soul, or a 'desire for +financial independence,' psychology has established a human being +possessed of more instincts than any animal, and with a psychical +nature whose activities fall completely within the causal law.</p> +<p>"It would be a great task and a useless one to work through +current economic literature and gather the strange and mystical +collection of human dispositions which economists have named the +springs of human activity. They have no relation to the modern +researches into human behavior of psychology or physiology. They +have an interesting relation only to the moral attributes +postulated in current religion.</p> +<p>"But more important and injurious than the caricaturing of wants +has been the disappearance from Economics of any treatment or +interest in human behavior and the evolution of human character in +Economic life. This is explained in large part by the self-divorce +of Economics from the biological field; but also in an important +way by the exclusion from Economics of considerations of +consumption.</p> +<p>"Only under the influence of the social and educational +psychologists and behaviorists could child-labor, the hobo, +unemployment, poverty, and criminality be given their just +emphasis; and it seems accurate to ascribe the social sterility of +Economic theory and its programme to its ignorance and lack of +interest in modern comparative psychology.</p> +<p>"A deeper knowledge of human instincts would never have allowed +American economists to keep their faith in a simple rise of wages +as an all-cure for labor unrest. In England, with a homogeneous +labor class, active in politics, maintaining university extension +courses, spending their union's income on intricate betterment +schemes, and wealthy in tradition—there a rise in wages meant +an increase in welfare. But in the United States, with a +heterogeneous labor class, bereft of their social norms by the +violence of their uprooting from the old world, dropped into an +unprepared and chaotic American life, with its insidious +prestige—here a rise in wages could and does often mean added +ostentation, social climbing, superficial polishing, new vice. This +social perversion in the consuming of the wage-increase is without +the ken of the economist. He cannot, if he would, think of it, for +he has no mental tools, no norms applicable for entrance into the +medley of human motives called consumption.</p> +<p>"For these many reasons economic thinking has been weak and +futile in the problems of conservation, of haphazard invention, of +unrestricted advertising, of anti-social production, of the +inadequacy of income, of criminality. These are problems within the +zone of the intimate life of the population. They are economic +problems, and determine efficiencies within the whole economic +life. The divorcing for inspection of the field of production from +the rest of the machinery of civilization has brought into practice +a false method, and the values arrived at have been unhappily +half-truths. America to-day is a monument to the truth that growth +in wealth becomes significant for national welfare only when it is +joined with an efficient and social policy in its consumption.</p> +<p>"Economics will only save itself through an alliance with the +sciences of human behavior, psychology, and biology, and through a +complete emancipation from 'prosperity mores.' ... The sin of +Economics has been the divorce of its work from reality, of +announcing an analysis of human activity with the human element +left out."</p> +<p>One other point remained ever a sore spot with Carl, and that +was the American university and its accomplishments. In going over +his writings, I find scattered through the manuscripts explosions +on the ways, means, and ends, of academic education in our United +States. For instance,—</p> +<p>"Consider the paradox of the rigidity of the university +student's scheme of study, and the vagaries and whims of the +scholarly emotion. Contemplate the forcing of that most delicate of +human attributes, <i>i.e.</i>, interest, to bounce forth at the +clang of a gong. To illustrate: the student is confidently expected +to lose himself in fine contemplation of Plato's philosophy up to +eleven o'clock, and then at 11.07, with no important mental cost, +to take up a profitable and scholarly investigation into the +banking problems of the United States. He will be allowed by the +proper academic committee German Composition at one o'clock, +diseases of citrus fruit trees at two, and at three he is asked to +exhibit a fine sympathy in the Religions and Customs of the Orient. +Between 4.07 and five it is calculated that he can with profit +indulge in gymnasium recreation, led by an instructor who counts +out loud and waves his arms in time to a mechanical piano. Between +five and six, this student, led by a yell-leader, applauds football +practice. The growing tendency of American university students to +spend their evenings in extravagant relaxation, at the moving +pictures, or in unconventional dancing, is said to be willful and +an indication of an important moral sag of recent years. It would +be interesting also to know if Arkwright, Hargreaves, Watt, or +Darwin, Edison, Henry Ford, or the Wrights, or other persons of +desirable if unconventional mechanical imagination, were encouraged +in their scientific meditation by scholastic experiences of this +kind. Every American university has a department of education +devoted to establishing the most effective methods of imparting +knowledge to human beings."</p> +<p>From the same article:—</p> +<p>"The break in the systematization which an irregular and +unpredictable thinker brings arouses a persistent if unfocused +displeasure. Hence we have the accepted and cultivated +institutions, such as our universities, our churches, our clubs, +sustaining with care mediocre standards of experimental thought. +European critics have long compared the repressed and uninspiring +intellect of the American undergraduate with the mobile state of +mind of the Russian and German undergraduates which has made their +institutions the centre of revolutionary change propaganda. To one +who knows in any intimate way the life of the American student, it +becomes only an uncomfortable humor to visualize any of his +campuses as the origins of social protests. The large industry of +American college athletics and its organization-for-victory +concept, the tendency to set up an efficient corporation as the +proper university model, the extensive and unashamed university +advertising, and consequent apprehension of public opinion, the +love of size and large registration, that strange psychological +abnormality, organized cheering, the curious companionship of state +universities and military drill, regular examinations and rigidly +prescribed work—all these interesting characteristics are, as +is natural in character-formation, both cause and effect. It +becomes an easy prophecy within behaviorism to forecast that +American universities will continue regular and mediocre in mental +activity and reasonably devoid of intellectual bent toward +experimental thinking."</p> +<p>Perhaps here is where I may quote a letter Carl received just +before leaving Berkeley, and his answer to it. This correspondence +brings up several points on which Carl at times received criticism, +and I should like to give the two sides, each so typical of the +point of view it represents.</p> +<p><i>February 28</i>, 1917</p> +<p>MY DEAR CARLETON PARKER,—</p> +<p>When we so casually meet it is as distressing as it is amusing +to me, to know that the God I intuitively defend presents to you +the image of the curled and scented monster of the Assyrian +sculpture.</p> +<p>He was never that to me, and the visualization of an imaginative +child is a remarkable thing. From the first, the word "God," spoken +in the comfortable (almost smug) atmosphere of the old Unitarian +congregation, took my breath and tranced me into a vision of a +great flood of vibrating light, and <i>only</i> light.</p> +<p>I wonder if, in your childhood, some frightening picture in some +old book was not the thing that you are still fighting against? So +that, emancipated as you are, you are still a little afraid, and +must perforce—with a remainder of the brave swagger of +youth—set up a barrier of authorities to fight behind, and, +quite unconsciously, you are thus building yourself into a vault in +which no flowers can bloom—because you have sealed the high +window of the imagination so that the frightening God may not look +in upon you—this same window through which simple men get an +illumination that saves their lives, and in the light of which they +communicate kindly, one with the other, their faith and hopes?</p> +<p>I am impelled to say this to you, first, because of the +responsibility which rests upon you in your relation to young +minds; and, second, I like you and your eagerness and the zest for +Truth that you transmit.</p> +<p>You are dedicated to the pursuit of Truth, and you afford us the +dramatic incidents of your pursuit.</p> +<p>Yet up to this moment it seems to me you are accepting Truth at +second-hand.</p> +<p>I counted seventeen "authorities" quoted, chapter and verse (and +then abandoned the enumeration), in the free talk of the other +evening; and asked myself if this reverence of the student for the +master, was all that we were ultimately to have of that vivid +individual whom we had so counted upon as Carl Parker?</p> +<p>I wondered, too, if, in the great opportunity that has come to +you, those simple country boys and girls of Washington were to be +thus deprived,—were to find not you but your +"authorities,"—because Carl Parker refused (even ever so +modestly) to learn that Truth, denied the aid of the free +imagination, takes revenge upon her disciple, by shutting off from +him the sources of life by which a man is made free, and reducing +his mind—his rich, variable, potential mind—to the +mechanical operation of a repetitious machine.</p> +<p>I feel this danger for you, and for the youths you are to +educate, so poignantly that I venture to write with this +frankness.</p> +<p>Your present imprisonment is not necessarily a life sentence; +but your satisfaction in it—your acceptance of the routine of +your treadmill—is chilling to the hopes of those who have +waited upon your progress; and it imperils your future—as +well as that hope we have in the humanities that are to be +implanted in the minds of the young people you are to instruct. We +would not have you remain under the misapprehension that Truth +alone can ever serve humanity—Truth remains sterile until it +is married to Goodness. That marriage is consummated in the high +flight of the imagination, and its progeny is of beauty.</p> +<p><i>You</i> need beauty—you need verse and color and +music—you need all the escapes—all the doors wide +open—and this seemingly impertinent letter is merely the +appeal of one human creature to another, for the sake of all the +human creatures whom you have it in your power to endow with chains +or with wings.</p> +<p><span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Very sincerely +yours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 9em;">BRUCE PORTER.</span></p> +<p><span style="margin-left: 2.5em;">MY DEAR BRUCE +PORTER,—</span></p> +<p>My present impatient attitude towards a mystic being without +doubt has been influenced by some impression of my childhood, but +not the terror-bringing creatures you suggest. My family was one of +the last three which clung to a dying church in my country town. I, +though a boy of twelve, passed the plate for two years while the +minister's daughter sang a solo. Our village was not a happy one, +and the incongruity of our emotional prayers and ecstasies of +imagery, and the drifting dullness and meanness of the life +outside, filtered in some way into my boy mind. I saw that +suffering was real and pressing, and so many suffered resignedly; +and that imagery and my companionship with a God (I was highly +"religious" then) worked in a self-centred circle. I never strayed +from the deadly taint of some gentle form of egotism. I was then +truly in a "vault." I did things for a system of ethics, not +because of a fine rush of social brotherly intuition. My +imagination was ever concerned with me and my prospects, my +salvation. I honestly and soberly believe that your "high window of +the imagination" works out in our world as such a force for +egotism; it is a self-captivating thing, it divorces man from the +plain and bitter realities of life, it brings an anti-social +emancipation to him. I can sincerely make this terrible charge +against the modern world, and that is, that it is its bent towards +mysticism, its blinding itself through hysteria, which makes +possible in its civilization its desperate inequalities of +life-expression, its tortured children, its unhappy men and women, +its wasted potentiality. We have not been humble and asked what is +man; we have not allowed ourselves to weigh sorrow. It is in such a +use that our powers of imagination could be brotherly. We look on +high in ecstasy, and fail to be on flame because 'of the suffering +of those whose wounds are bare to our eyes on the street.</p> +<p>And that brings me to my concept of a God. God exists in us +because of our bundle of social brother-acts. Contemplation and +crying out and assertions of belief are in the main notices that we +are substituting something for acts. Our God should be a thing +discovered only in retrospect. We live, we fight, we know others, +and, as Overstreet says, our God sins and fights at our shoulder. +He may be a mean God or a fine one. He is limited in his stature by +our service.</p> +<p>I fear your God, because I think he is a product of the unreal +and unhelpful, that he has a "bad psychological past," that he is +subtly egotistical, that he fills the vision and leaves no room for +the simple and patient deeds of brotherhood, a heavenly +contemplation taking the place of earthly deeds.</p> +<p>You feel that I quote too many minds and am hobbled by it. I +delight just now in the companionship of men through their books. I +am devoted to knowing the facts of the lives of other humans and +the train of thought which their experiences have started. To lead +them is like talking to them. I suspect, even dread, the "original +thinker" who knows little of the experiments and failures of the +thinkers of other places and times. To me such a stand denies that +promising thing, the evolution of human thought. I also turn from +those who borrow, but neglect to tell their sources. I want my +"simple boys and girls of Washington" to know that to-day is a day +of honest science; that events have antecedents; that "luck" does +not exist; that the world will improve only through thoughtful +social effort, and that lives are happy only in that effort. And +with it all there will be time for beauty and verse and color and +music—far be it from me to shut these out of my own life or +the lives of others. But they are instruments, not attributes. I am +very glad you wrote.</p> +<p><span style="margin-left: 7.5em;">Sincerely yours,</span><br /> +<span style="margin-left: 10.5em;">Carleton H. Parker.</span></p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIII" id="CHAPTER_XIII"></a>CHAPTER XIII</h2> +<p>In May we sold our loved hill nest in Berkeley and started +north, stopping for a three months' vacation—our first real +vacation since we had been married—at Castle Crags, where, +almost ten years before, we had spent the first five days of our +honeymoon, before going into Southern Oregon. There, in a log-cabin +among the pines, we passed unbelievably cherished days—work +a-plenty, play a-plenty, and the family together day in, day out. +There was one little extra trip he got in with the two sons, for +which I am so thankful. The three of them went off with their +sleeping-bags and rods for two days, leaving "the girls" behind. +Each son caught his first trout with a fly. They put the fish, +cleaned, in a cool sheltered spot, because they had to be carried +home for me to see; and lo! a little bear came down in the night +and ate the fish, in addition to licking the fat all off the +frying-pan.</p> +<p>Then, like a bolt from the blue, came the fateful telegram from +Washington, D.C.—labor difficulties in construction-work at +Camp Lewis—would he report there at once as Government +Mediator. Oh! the Book, the Book—the Book that was to be +finished without fail before the new work at the University of +Washington began! Perhaps he would be back in a week! Surely he +would be back in a week! So he packed just enough for a week, and +off he went. One week! When, after four weeks, there was still no +let up in his mediation duties,—in fact they +increased,—I packed up the family and we left for Seattle. I +had rewound his fishing-rod with orange silk, and had revarnished +it, as a surprise for his home-coming to Castle Crags. He never +fished with it again.</p> +<p>How that man loved fishing! How he loved every sport, for that +matter. And he loved them with the same thoroughness and allegiance +that he gave to any cause near his heart. Baseball—he played +on his high-school team (also he could recite "Casey at the Bat" +with a gusto that many a friend of the earlier days will remember. +And here I am reminded of his "Christopher Columnibus." I recently +ran across a postcard a college mate sent Carl from Italy years +ago, with a picture of a statue of Columbus on it. On the reverse +side the friend had written, quoting from Carl's monologue: "'Boom +Joe!' says the king; which is being interpreted, 'I see you first.' +'Wheat cakes,' says Chris, which is the Egyptian for 'Boom Joe'"). +He loved football, track,—he won three gold medals +broad-jumping,—canoeing, swimming, billiards,—he won a +loving cup at that, tennis, ice-skating, hand-ball; and yes, ye of +finer calibre, quiver if you will—he loved a prize-fight and +played a mighty good game of poker, as well as bridge—though +in the ten and a half years that we were married I cannot remember +that he played poker once or bridge more than five times. He did, +however, enjoy his bridge with Simon Patton in Philadelphia; and +when he played, he played well.</p> +<p>I tell you there was hardly anything the man could not do. He +could draw the funniest pictures you ever saw—I wish I could +reproduce the letters he sent his sons from the East. He was a good +carpenter—the joy it meant to his soul to add a second-hand +tool ever so often to his collection! Sunday morning was special +carpenter-time—new shelves here, a bookcase there, new steps +up to the swimming-tank, etc. I have heard many a man say that he +told a story better than any one they ever heard. He was an expert +woodsman. And, my gracious! how he did love babies! That hardly +fits in just here, but I think of it now. His love for children +colored his whole economic viewpoint.</p> +<p>"There is the thing that possessed Parker—the perception +of the destructive significance of the repressed and balked +instincts of the migratory worker, the unskilled, the casuals, the +hoboes, the womanless, jobless, voteless men. To him their tragedy +was akin to the tragedy of child-life in our commercialized cities. +More often than of anything else, he used to talk to me of the +fatuous blindness of a civilization that centred its economic +activities in places where child-life was perpetually repressed and +imperiled. The last time I saw him he was flaming indignation at +the ghastly record of children killed and maimed by trucks and +automobiles. What business had automobiles where children should be +free to play? What could be said for the human wisdom of a +civilization that placed traffic above child-life? In our denial to +children, to millions of men and women, of the means for satisfying +their instinctive desires and innate dispositions, he saw the +principal explanation of crime, labor-unrest, the violence of +strikes, the ghastly violence of war<a name="FNanchor_1_1" id= +"FNanchor_1_1"></a><a href="#Footnote_1_1" class= +"fnanchor">[1]</a>."</p> +<div class="footnote"> +<p><a name="Footnote_1_1" id="Footnote_1_1"></a><a href= +"#FNanchor_1_1"><span class="label">[1]</span></a> Robert +Bruère, in the <i>New Republic</i>, May 18, 1918.</p> +</div> +<p>He could never pass any youngster anywhere without a word of +greeting as from friend to friend. I remember being in a crowded +car with him in our engaged days. He was sitting next to a woman +with a baby who was most unhappy over the ways of the world. Carl +asked if he could not hold the squaller. The mother looked a bit +doubtful, but relinquished her child. Within two minutes the babe +was content on Carl's knees, clutching one of his fingers in a fat +fist and sucking his watch. The woman leaned over to me later, as +she was about to depart with a very sound asleep offspring. "Is he +as lovely as that to his own?"</p> +<p>The tenderness of him over his own! Any hour of the day or night +he was alert to be of any service in any trouble, big or little. He +had a collection of tricks and stories on hand for any youngster +who happened along. The special pet of our own boys was "The +Submarine Obo Bird"—a large flapper (Dad's arms fairly rent +the air), which was especially active early in the morning, when +small boys appeared to prefer staying in bed to getting up. The Obo +Bird went "Pak! Pak!" and lit on numerous objects about the +sleeping porch. Carl's two hands would plump stiff, fingers down, +on the railing, or on a small screw sticking out somewhere. +Scratches. Then "Pak!" and more flaps. This time the Obo Bird would +light a trifle nearer the small boy whose "turn" it was—round +eyes, and an agitated grin from ear to ear, plus explosive giggles +and gurglings emerging from the covers. Nearer and nearer came the +Obo Bird. Gigglier and gigglier got the small boy. Finally, with a +spring and a last "Pak! Pak! Pak!" the Obo Bird dove under the +covers at the side of the bed and pinched the small boy who would +not get up. (Rather a premium on not rising promptly was the Obo +Bird.) Final ecstatic squeals from the pinched. Then, "Now it's my +turn, daddo!" from the other son.—The Submarine Obo Bird +lived in Alaska and ate Spooka biscuits. There was just developing +a wee Obo Bird, that made less vehement "paks!" and pinched less +agitatedly—a special June-Bug Obo Bird. In fact, the baby was +not more than three months old when the boys demanded a Submarine +Obo Bird that ate little Spooka biscuits for sister.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>His trip to Camp Lewis threw him at once into the midst of the +lumber difficulties of the Northwest, which lasted for months. The +big strike in the lumber industry was on when he arrived. He wrote: +"It is a strike to better conditions. The I.W.W. are only the +display feature. The main body of opinion is from a lot of +unskilled workers who are sick of the filthy bunk-houses and rotten +grub." He wrote later of a conference with the big lumbermen, and +of how they would not stay on the point but "roared over the I.W.W. +I told them that condemnation was not a solution, or businesslike, +but what we wanted was a statement of how they were to open their +plants. More roars. More demands for troops, etc. I said I was a +college man, not used to business; but if business men had as much +trouble as this keeping to the real points involved, give me a +faculty analysis. They laughed over this and got down to business, +and in an hour lined up the affair in mighty good shape."</p> +<p>I wish it were proper to go into the details here of the various +conferences, the telegrams sent to Washington, the replies. Carl +wrote: "I am saving all the copies for you, as it is most +interesting history." Each letter would end: "By three days at +least I should start back. I am getting frantic to be home." Home, +for the Parkers, was always where we happened to be then. Castle +Crags was as much "home" as any place had ever been. We had moved +fourteen times in ten years: of the eleven Christmases we had had +together, only two had been in the same place. There were times +when "home" was a Pullman car. It made no difference. One of the +strange new feelings I have to get used to is the way I now look at +places to live in. It used to be that Carl and I, in passing the +littlest bit of a hovel, would say, "We could be perfectly happy in +a place like that, couldn't we? Nothing makes any difference if we +are together." But certain kinds of what we called "cuddly" houses +used to make us catch our breaths, to think of the extra joy it +would be living together tucked away in there. Now, when I pass a +place that looks like that, I have to drop down some kind of a +trap-door in my brain, and not think at all until I get well by +it.</p> +<p>Labor conditions in the Northwest grew worse, strikes more +general, and finally Carl wrote that he just must be indefinitely +on the job. "I am so home-sick for you that I feel like packing up +and coming. I literally feel terribly. But with all this feeling I +don't see how I can. Not only have I been telegraphed to stay on +the job, but the situation is growing steadily worse. Last night my +proposal (eight-hour day, non-partisan complaint and adjustment +board, suppression of violence by the state) was turned down by the +operators in Tacoma. President Suzzallo and I fought for six hours +but it went down. The whole situation is drifting into a state of +incipient sympathetic strikes." Later: "This is the most +bull-headed affair and I don't think it is going to get anywhere." +Still later: "Things are not going wonderfully in our mediation. +Employers demanding everything and men granting much but not that." +Again: "Each day brings a new crisis. Gee, labor is unrestful ... +and gee, the pigheadedness of bosses! Human nature is sure one +hundred per cent psychology." Also he wrote, referring to the +general situation at the University and in the community: "Am +getting absolutely crazy with enthusiasm over my job here. . . . It +is too vigorous and resultful for words." And again: "The mediation +between employers and men blew up to-day at 4 P.M. and now a host +of nice new strikes show on the horizon. . . . There are a lot of +fine operators but some hard shells." Again: "Gee, I'm learning! +And talk about material for the Book!"</p> +<p>An article appeared in one of the New York papers recently, +entitled "How Carleton H. Parker Settled Strikes":—</p> +<p>"It was under his leadership that, in less than a year, +twenty-seven disputes which concerned Government work in the +Pacific Northwest were settled, and it was his method to lay the +basis for permanent relief as he went along. . . .</p> +<p>"Parker's contribution was in the method he used. . . . Labor +leaders of all sorts would flock to him in a bitter, weltering +mass, mouthing the set phrases of class-hatred they use so +effectually in stirring up trouble. They would state their case. +And Parker would quietly deduce the irritation points that seemed +to stand out in the jumbled testimony.</p> +<p>"Then it would be almost laughable to the observer to hear the +employer's side of the case. Invariably it was just as bitter, just +as unreasoning, and just as violent, as the statement of their case +by the workers. Parker would endeavor to find, in all this heap of +words, the irritation points of the other side.</p> +<p>"But when a study was finished, his diagnosis made, and his +prescription of treatment completed, Parker always insisted in +carrying it straight to the workers. And he did not just tell them +results. He often took several hours, sometimes several meetings of +several hours each. In these meetings he would go over every detail +of his method, from start to finish, explaining, answering +questions, meeting objections with reason. And he always won them +over. But, of course, it must be said that he had a tremendously +compelling personality that carried him far."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XIV" id="CHAPTER_XIV"></a>CHAPTER XIV</h2> +<p>At the end of August the little family was united again in +Seattle. Almost the clearest picture of Carl I have is the eager +look with which he scanned the people stepping out of our car at +the station, and the beam that lit up his face as he spied us. +There is a line in Dorothy Canfield's "Bent Twig" that always +appealed to us. The mother and father were separated for a few +days, to the utter anguish of the father especially, and he +remarked, "It's Hell to be happily married!" Every time we were +ever separated we felt just that.</p> +<p>In one of Carl's letters from Seattle he had written: "The +'Atlantic Monthly' wants me to write an article on the I.W.W.!!" So +the first piece of work he had to do after we got settled was that. +We were tremendously excited, and never got over chuckling at some +of the moss-grown people we knew about the country who would feel +outraged at the "Atlantic Monthly" stooping to print stuff by that +young radical. And on such a subject! How we tore at the end, to +get the article off on time! The stenographer from the University +came about two one Sunday afternoon. I sat on the floor up in the +guest-room and read the manuscript to her while she typed it off. +Carl would rush down more copy from his study on the third floor. +I'd go over it while Miss Van Doren went over what she had typed. +Then the reading would begin again. We hated to stop for supper, +all three of us were so excited to get the job done. It <i>had</i> +to be at the main post-office that night by eleven, to arrive in +Boston when promised. At ten-thirty it was in the envelope, three +limp people tore for the car, we put Miss Van Doren on,—she +was to mail the article on her way home,—and Carl and I, +knowing this was an occasion for a treat if ever there was one, +routed out a sleepy drug-store clerk and ate the remains of his +Sunday ice-cream supply.</p> +<p>I can never express how grateful I am that that article was +written and published before Carl died. The influence of it +ramified in many and the most unexpected directions. I am still +hearing of it. We expected condemnation at the time. There probably +was plenty of it, but only one condemner wrote. On the other hand, +letters streamed in by the score from friends and strangers bearing +the general message, "God bless you for it!"</p> +<p>That article is particularly significant as showing his method +of approach to the whole problem of the I.W.W., after some two +years of psychological study.</p> +<p>"The futility of much conventional American social analysis is +due to its description of the given problem in terms of its +relationship to some relatively unimportant or artificial +institution. Few of the current analyses of strikes or labor +violence make use of the basic standards of human desire and +intention which control these phenomena. A strike and its demands +are usually praised as being law-abiding, or economically bearable, +or are condemned as being unlawful, or confiscatory. These four +attributes of a strike are important only as incidental +consequences. The habit of Americans thus to measure up social +problems to the current, temporary, and more or less accidental +scheme of traditions and legal institutions, long ago gave birth to +our national belief that passing a new law or forcing obedience to +an old one was a specific for any unrest. The current analysis of +the I.W.W. and its activities is an example of this perverted and +unscientific method. The I.W.W. analysis, which has given both +satisfaction and a basis for treating the organization, runs as +follows: the organization is unlawful in its activity, un-American +in its sabotage, unpatriotic in its relation to the flag, the +government, and the war. The rest of the condemnation is a play +upon these three attributes. So proper and so sufficient has this +condemnatory analysis become, that it is a risky matter to approach +the problem from another angle. But it is now so obvious that our +internal affairs are out of gear, that any comprehensive scheme of +national preparedness would demand that full and honest +consideration be given to all forces determining the degree of +American unity, one force being this tabooed organization.</p> +<p>"It would be best to announce here a more or less dogmatic +hypothesis to which the writer will steadfastly adhere: that human +behavior results from the rather simple, arithmetical combination +of the inherited nature of man and the environment in which his +maturing years are passed! Man will behave according to the hints +for conduct which the accidents of his life have stamped into his +memory mechanism. A slum produces a mind which has only slum +incidents with which to work, and a spoiled and protected child +seldom rises to aggressive competitive behavior, simply because its +past life has stored up no memory imprints from which a +predisposition to vigorous life can be built. The particular things +called the moral attributes of man's conduct are conventionally +found by contrasting this educated and trained way of acting with +the exigencies and social needs or dangers of the time. Hence, +while his immoral or unpatriotic behavior may fully justify his +government in imprisoning or eliminating him when it stands in some +particular danger which his conduct intensifies, this punishment in +no way either explains his character or points to an enduring +solution of his problem. Suppression, while very often justified +and necessary in the flux of human relationship, always carries a +social cost which must be liquidated, and also a backfire danger +which must be insured against. The human being is born with no +innate proclivity to crime or special kind of unpatriotism. Crime +and treason are habit-activities, educated into man by +environmental influences favorable to their development. . . .</p> +<p>"The I.W.W. can be profitably viewed only as a psychological +by-product of the neglected childhood of industrial America. It is +discouraging to see the problem to-day examined almost exclusively +from the point of view of its relation to patriotism and +conventional ventional commercial morality. . . .</p> +<p>"It is perhaps of value to quote the language of the most +influential of the I.W.W. leaders.</p> +<p>"'You ask me why the I.W.W. is not patriotic to the United +States. If you were a bum without a blanket; if you left your wife +and kids when you went West for a job, and had never located them +since; if your job never kept you long enough in a place to qualify +you to vote; if you slept in a lousy, sour bunk-house, and ate food +just as rotten as they could give you and get by with it; if deputy +sheriffs shot your cooking-cans full of holes and spilled your grub +on the ground; if your wages were lowered on you when the bosses +thought they had you down; if there was one law for Ford, Suhr, and +Mooney, and another for Harry Thaw; if every person who represented +law and order and the nation beat you up, railroaded you to jail, +and the good Christian people cheered and told them to go to it, +how in hell do you expect a man to be patriotic? This war is a +business man's war and we don't see why we should go out and get +shot in order to save the lovely state of affairs that we now +enjoy.'</p> +<p>"The argument was rather difficult to keep productive, because +gratitude—that material prerequisite to +patriotism—seemed wanting in their attitude toward the +American government. Their state of mind could be explained only by +referring it, as was earlier suggested, to its major relationships. +The dominating concern of the I.W.W. is what Keller calls the +maintenance problem. Their philosophy is, in its simple reduction, +a stomach-philosophy, and their politico-industrial revolt could be +called without injustice a hunger-riot. But there is an important +correction to this simple statement. While their way of living has +seriously encroached on the urgent minima of nutrition, shelter, +clothing, and physical health, it has also long outraged the +American laboring-class traditions touching social life, sex-life, +self-dignity, and ostentation. Had the food and shelter been +sufficient, the revolt tendencies might have simmered out, were the +migratory labor population not keenly sensitive to traditions of a +richer psychological life than mere physical maintenance."</p> +<p>The temper of the country on this subject, the general closed +attitude of mind which the average man holds thereon, prompt me to +add here a few more of Carl's generalizations and conclusions in +this article. If only he were here, to cry aloud again and yet +again on this point! Yet I know there are those who sense his +approach, and are endeavoring in every way possible to make wisdom +prevail over prejudice.</p> +<p>"Cynical disloyalty and contempt of the flag must, in the light +of modern psychology, come from a mind which is devoid of national +gratitude, and in which the United States stirs no memory of +satisfaction or happiness. To those of us who normally feel loyal +to the nation, such a disloyal sentiment brings sharp indignation. +As an index of our own sentiment and our own happy relations to the +nation, this indignation has value. As a stimulus to a programme or +ethical generalization, it is the cause of vast inaccuracy and sad +injustice. American syndicalism is not a scheming group dominated +by an unconventional and destructive social philosophy. It is +merely a commonplace attitude—not such a state of mind as +Machiavelli or Robespierre possessed, but one stamped by the +lowest, most miserable labor-conditions and outlook which American +industrialism produces. To those who have seen at first-hand the +life of the western casual laborer, any reflections on his +gratitude or spiritual buoyancy seem ironical humor.</p> +<p>"An altogether unwarranted importance has been given to the +syndicalist philosophy of the I.W.W. A few leaders use its +phraseology. Of these few, not half a dozen know the meaning of +French syndicalism or English guild socialism. To the great +wandering rank and file, the I.W.W. is simply the only social break +in the harsh search for work that they have ever had; its +headquarters the only competitor of the saloon in which they are +welcome. . . .</p> +<p>"It is a conventional economic truism that American +industrialism is guaranteeing to some half of the forty millions of +our industrial population a life of such limited happiness, of such +restrictions on personal development, and of such misery and +desolation when sickness or accident comes, that we should be +childish political scientists not to see that from such an +environment little self-sacrificing love of country, little of +ethics, little of gratitude could come. It is unfortunate that the +scientific findings of our social condition must use words which +sound strangely like the phraseology of the Socialists. This +similarity, however, should logically be embarrassing to the +critics of these findings, not to the scientists. Those who have +investigated and studied the lower strata of American labor have +long recognized the I.W.W. as purely a symptom of a certain +distressing state of affairs. The casual migratory laborers are the +finished product of an economic environment which seems cruelly +efficient in turning out human beings modeled after all the +standards which society abhors. The history of the migratory +workers shows that, starting with the long hours and dreary winters +on the farms they ran away from, or the sour-smelling bunk-house in +a coal village, through their character-debasing experience with +the drifting 'hire and fire' life in the industries, on to the +vicious social and economic life of the winter unemployed, their +training predetermined but one outcome, and the environment +produced its type.</p> +<p>"The I.W.W. has importance only as an illustration of a stable +American economic process. Its pitiful syndicalism, its +street-corner opposition to the war, are the inconsequential +trimmings. Its strike alone, faithful as it is to the American +type, is an illuminating thing. The I.W.W., like the Grangers, the +Knights of Labor, the Farmers' Alliance, the Progressive Party, is +but a phenomenon of revolt. The cure lies in taking care of its +psychic antecedents; the stability of our Republic depends on the +degree of courage and wisdom with which we move to the task."</p> +<p>In this same connection I quote from another article:—</p> +<p>"No one doubts the full propriety of the government's +suppressing ruthlessly any interference of the I.W.W. with +war-preparation. All patriots should just as vehemently protest +against all suppression of the normal protest activities of the +I.W.W. There will be neither permanent peace nor prosperity in our +country till the revolt basis of the I.W.W. is removed. And until +that is done, the I.W.W. remains an unfortunate, valuable symptom +of a diseased industrialism."</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>I watch, along with many others, the growth of bitterness and +hysteria in the treatment of labor spreading throughout our +country, and I long, with many others, for Carl, with his depth and +sanity of understanding, coupled with his passion for justice and +democracy, to be somewhere in a position of guidance for these +troublous times.</p> +<p>I am reminded here of a little incident that took place just at +this time. An I.W.W. was to come out to have dinner with +us—some other friends, faculty people, also were to be there. +About noon the telephone rang. Carl went. A rich Irish brogue +announced: "R—— can't come to your party to-night." +"Why is that?" "He's pinched. An' he wants t' know can he have your +Kant's 'Critique of Pure Reason' to read while he's in jail."</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XV" id="CHAPTER_XV"></a>CHAPTER XV</h2> +<p>I am forever grateful that Carl had his experience at the +University of Washington before he died. He left the University of +California a young Assistant Professor, just one rebellious morsel +in a huge machine. He found himself in Washington, not only Head of +the Department of Economics and Dean of the College of Commerce, +and a power on the campus, but a power in the community as well. He +was working under a President who backed him in everything to the +last ditch, who was keenly interested in every ambition he had for +making a big thing of his work. He at last could see Introductory +Economics given as he wanted to have it given—realizing at +the same time that his plans were in the nature of an experiment. +The two textbooks used in the first semester were McDougall's +"Social Psychology" and Wallas's "Great Society." During part of +the time he pinned the front page of the morning paper on the +board, and illustrated his subject-matter by an item of news of +that very day.</p> +<p>His theory of education was that the first step in any subject +was to awaken a keen interest and curiosity in the student; for +that reason he felt that pure theory in Economics was too difficult +for any but seniors or graduates; that, given too soon, it tended +only to discourage. He allowed no note-taking in any of his +courses, insisted on discussion by the class, no matter how large +it was, planned to do away with written examinations as a test of +scholarship, substituting instead a short oral discussion with each +student individually, grading them "passed" and "not passed." As it +was, because of the pressure of Government work, he had to resort +to written tests. The proportion of first sections in the final +examination, which was difficult, was so large that Carl was sure +the reader must have marked too leniently, and looked over the +papers himself. His results were the same as the reader's, and, he +felt, could justifiably be used as some proof of his theory that, +if a student is interested in the subject, you cannot keep him from +doing good work.</p> +<p>I quote here from two letters written by Washington students who +had been under his influence but five months.</p> +<p>"May I, as only a student, add my inadequate sympathy for the +loss of Dr. Parker—the most liberal man I have known. While +his going from my educative life can be nothing as compared to his +loss from a very beautiful family group, yet the enthusiasm, the +radiance of his personality—freely given in his classes +during the semester I was privileged to know him—made +possible to me a greater realization of the fascination of humanity +than I obtained during my previous four years of college study. I +still look for him to enter the classroom, nor shall I soon forget +his ideals, his faith in humanity." From the second letter: "To +have known Mr. Parker as well as I did makes me feel that I was +indeed privileged, and I shall always carry with me the charm and +inspiration of his glorious personality. The campus was never so +sad as on the day which brought the news of his death—it +seemed almost incredible that one man in five short months could +have left so indelible an impress of his character on the student +body."</p> +<p>Besides being of real influence on the campus, he had the +respect and confidence of the business world, both labor and +capital; and in addition, he stood as the representative of the +Government in labor-adjustments and disputes. And—it was of +lesser consequence, but oh it <i>did</i> matter—<i>we had +money enough to live on!!</i> We had made ourselves honestly think +that we had just about everything we wanted on what we got, plus +outside lectures, in California. But once we had tasted of the +new-found freedom of truly enough; once there was gone forever the +stirring around to pick up a few extra dollars here and there to +make both ends meet; once we knew for the first time the +satisfaction and added joy that come from some responsible person +to help with the housework—we felt that we were soaring +through life with our feet hardly touching the ground.</p> +<p>Instead of my spending most of the day in the kitchen and riding +herd on the young, we had our dropped-straight-from-heaven Mrs. +Willard. And see what that meant. Every morning at nine I left the +house with Carl, and we walked together to the University. As I +think of those daily walks now, arm-in-arm, rain or shine, I'd not +give up the memory of them for all creation. Carl would go over +what he was to talk about that morning in Introductory Economics +(how it would have raised the hair of the orthodox Econ. I +teacher!), and of course we always talked some of what marvelous +children we possessed. Carl would begin: "Tell me some more about +the June-Bug!"</p> +<p>He would go to his nine o'clock, I to mine. After my ten-o'clock +class, and on the way to my eleven-o'clock lecture, I always ran in +to his office a second, to gossip over what mail he had got that +morning and how things were going generally. Then, at twelve, in +his office again. "Look at this telegram that just came in." "How +shall I answer Mr. ——'s about that job?" And then home +together; not once a week, but <i>every day</i>.</p> +<p>Afternoons, except the three afternoons when I played hockey, I +was at home; but always there was a possibility that Carl would +ring up about five. "I am at a meeting down-town. Can't get things +settled, so we continue this evening. Run down and have supper with +me, and perhaps, who knows, a Bill Hart film might be around town!" +There was Mrs. Willard who knew just what to do, and off I could +fly to see my husband. You can't, on $1700 a year.</p> +<p>I hear people nowadays scold and roar over the pay the working +classes are getting, and how they are spending it all on nonsense +and not saving a cent. I stand it as long as I can and then I burst +out. For I, too, have tasted the joy of at last being able to get +things we never thought we would own and of feeling the wings of +financial freedom feather out where, before, all had been cold +calculation: Can we do this? if so, what must we give up? I wish +every one on earth could feel it. I do not care if they do not save +a cent.</p> +<p>Only I do wish my Carl could have experienced those joys a +little longer. It was so good—so good, while it lasted! And +it was only just starting. Every new call he got to another +university was at a salary from one to two thousand dollars more +than what we were getting, even at Seattle. It looked as if our +days of financial scrimping were gone forever. We even discussed a +Ford! nay—even a four-cylinder Buick! And every other Sunday +we had fricasseed chicken, and always, always a frosting on the +cake. For the first two months in Seattle we felt as if we ought to +have company at every meal. It did not seem right to sit down to +food as good as that, with just the family present. And it was such +fun to bring home unexpected guests, and to know that Mrs. Willard +could concoct a dream of a dish while the guests were removing +their hats; and I not having to miss any of the conversation from +being in the kitchen. Every other Sunday night we had the whole +Department and their wives to Sunday supper—sixteen of them. +Oh dear, oh dear, money does make a difference. We grew more +determined than ever to see that more folk in the world got more of +it.</p> +<p>And yet, in a sense, Carl was a typical professor in his +unconcern over matters financial. He started in the first month we +were married by turning over every cent to me as a matter of +course; and from the beginning of each month to the end, he never +had the remotest idea how much money we possessed or what it was +spent for. So far as his peace of mind went, on the whole, he was a +capitalist. He knew we needed more money than he was making at the +University of California, therefore he made all he could on the +outside, and came home and dumped it in my lap. From one year's end +to the next, he spent hardly five cents on himself—a new suit +now and then, a new hat, new shirts at a sale, but never a penny +that was not essential.</p> +<p>On the rest of us—there he needed a curbing hand! I +discovered him negotiating to buy me a set of jade when he was +getting one hundred dollars a month. He would bring home a box of +peaches or a tray of berries, when they were first in the market +and eaten only by bank presidents and railway magnates, and beam +and say, "Guess what surprise I have for you!" Nothing hurt his +feelings more than to have him suggest I should buy something for +myself, and have me answer that we could not afford it. "Then I'll +dig sewers on the side!" he would exclaim. "You buy it, and I'll +find the money for it somewhere." If he had turned off at an angle +of fifty degrees when he first started his earthly career, he would +have been a star example of the individual who presses the palms of +his hands together and murmurs, "The Lord will provide!"</p> +<p>I never knew a man who was so far removed from the traditional +ideas of the proper position of the male head of a household. He +felt, as I have said, that he was not the one to have control over +finances—that was the wife's province. Then he had another +attitude which certainly did not jibe with the Lord-of-the-Manor +idea. Perhaps there would be something I wanted to do, and I would +wait to ask him about it when he got home. Invariably the same +thing would happen. He would take my two hands and put them so that +I held his coat-lapels. Then he would place his hands on my +shoulders, beam all over, eyes twinkling, and say:—</p> +<p>"Who's boss of this household, anyway?"</p> +<p>And I <i>had</i> to answer, "I am."</p> +<p>"Who gets her own way one hundred per cent?"</p> +<p>"I do."</p> +<p>"Who never gets his own way and never wants to get his own +way?"</p> +<p>"You."</p> +<p>"Well, then, you know perfectly well you are to do anything in +this world you want to do." With a chuckle he would add, "Think of +it—not a look-in in my own home!"</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>Seattle, as I look back on it, meant the unexpected—in +every way. Our little sprees together were not the planned-out ones +of former years. From the day Carl left Castle Crags, his time was +never his own; we could never count on anything from one day to the +next—a strike here, an arbitration there, government orders +for this, some investigation needed for that. It was harassing, it +was wearying. But always every few days there would be that +telephone ring which I grew both to dread and to love. For as often +as it said, "I've got to go to Tacoma," it also said, "You Girl, +put on your hat and coat this minute and come down town while I +have a few minutes off—we'll have supper together +anyhow."</p> +<p>And the feeling of the courting days never left us—that +almost sharp joy of being together again when we just locked arms +for a block and said almost nothing—nothing to repeat. And +the good-bye that always meant a wrench, always, though it might +mean being together within a few hours. And always the waving from +the one on the back of the car to the one standing on the corner. +Nothing, nothing, ever got tame. After ten years, if Carl ever +found himself a little early to catch the train for Tacoma, say, +though he had said good-bye but a half an hour before and was to be +back that evening, he would find a telephone-booth and ring up to +say, perhaps, that he was glad he had married me! Mrs. Willard once +said that after hearing Carl or me talk to the other over the +telephone, it made other husbands and wives when they telephoned +sound as if they must be contemplating divorce. But telephoning was +an event: it was a little extra present from Providence, as it +were.</p> +<p>And I think of two times when we met accidentally on the street +in Seattle—it seemed something we could hardly believe: all +the world—the war, commerce, industry—stopped while we +tried to realize what had happened.</p> +<p>Then, every night that he had to be out,—and he had to be +out night after night in Seattle,—I would hear his footstep +coming down the street; it would wake me, though he wore rubber +heels. He would fix the catch on the front-door lock, then come +upstairs, calling out softly, "You awake?" He always knew I was. +Then, sitting on the edge of the bed, he would tell all the +happenings since I had seen him last. Once in a while he'd sigh and +say, "A little ranch up on the Clearwater would go pretty well +about now, wouldn't it, my girl?" And I would sigh, and say, "Oh +dear, wouldn't it?"</p> +<p>I remember once, when we were first married, he got home one +afternoon before I did. When I opened the door to our little +Seattle apartment, there he was, walking the floor, looking as if +the bottom had dropped out of the universe. "I've had the most +awful twenty minutes," he informed me, "simply terrible. Promise me +absolutely that never, never will you let me get home before you +do. To expect to find you home and then open the door into empty +rooms—oh, I never lived through such a twenty minutes!" We +had a lark's whistle that we had used since before our engaged +days. Carl would whistle it under my window at the Theta house in +college, and I would run down and out the side door, to the utter +disgust of my well-bred "sisters," who arranged to make cutting +remarks at the table about it in the hope that I would reform my +"servant-girl tactics." That whistle was whistled through those +early Seattle days, through Oakland, through Cambridge, Leipzig, +Berlin, Heidelberg, Munich, Swanage, Berkeley, Alamo in the +country, Berkeley again (he would start it way down the hill so I +could surely hear), Castle Crags, and Seattle. Wherever any of us +were in the house, it meant a dash for all to the front +door—to welcome the Dad home.</p> +<p>One evening I was scanning some article on marriage by the fire +in Seattle—it was one of those rare times that Carl too was +at home and going over lectures for the next day. It held that, to +be successful, marriage had to be an adjustment—a giving in +here by the man, there by the woman.</p> +<p>I said to Carl: "If that is true, you must have been doing all +the adjusting; I never have had to give up, or fit in, or +relinquish one little thing, so you've been doing it all."</p> +<p>He thought for a moment, then answered: "You know, I've heard +that too, and wondered about it. For I know I've given up nothing, +made no 'adjustments.' On the contrary, I seem always to have been +getting more than a human being had any right to count on."</p> +<p>It was that way, even to the merest details, such as both liking +identically the same things to eat, seasoned the identical way. We +both liked to do the identical things, without a single exception. +Perhaps one exception—he had a fondness in his heart for +firearms that I could not share. (The gleam in his eyes when he got +out his collection every so often to clean and oil it!) I liked +guns, provided I did not have to shoot at anything alive with them; +but pistols I just plain did not like at all. We rarely could pass +one of these shooting-galleries without trying our luck at five +cents for so many turns—at clay pigeons or rabbits whirling +around on whatnots; but that was as wild as I ever wanted to get +with a gun.</p> +<p>We liked the same friends without exception, the same books, the +same pictures, the same music. He wrote once: "We (the two of us) +love each other, like to do things together (absolutely anything), +don't need or want anybody else, and the world is ours." Mrs. +Willard once told me that if she had read about our life together +in a book, she would not have believed it. She did not know that +any one on earth could live like that. Perhaps that is one reason +why I want to tell about it—because it was just so plain +wonderful day in, day out. I feel, too, that I have a complete +record of our life. For fourteen years, every day that we were not +together we wrote to each other, with the exception of two short +camping-trips that Carl made, where mail could be sent out only by +chance returning campers.</p> +<p>Somehow I find myself thinking here of our wedding +anniversaries,—spread over half the globe,—and the joy +we got out of just those ten occasions. The first one was back in +Oakland, after our return from Seattle. We still had elements of +convention left in us then,—or, rather, I still had some; I +don't believe Carl had a streak of it in him ever,—so we +dressed in our very best clothes, dress-suit and all, and had +dinner at the Key Route Inn, where we had gone after the wedding a +year before. After dinner we rushed home, I nursed the son, we +changed into natural clothes, and went to the circus. I had +misgivings about the circus being a fitting wedding-anniversary +celebration; but what was one to do when the circus comes to town +but one night in the year?</p> +<p>The second anniversary was in Cambridge. We always used to laugh +each year and say: "Gracious! if any one had told us a year ago +we'd be here this September seventh!" Every year we were somewhere +we never dreamed we would be. That first September seventh, the +night of the wedding, we were to be in Seattle for +years—selling bonds. What a fearful prospect in retrospect, +compared to what we really did! The second September, back in +Oakland, we thought we were to be in the bond business for years in +Oakland. More horrible thoughts as I look back upon it. The third +September seventh, the second anniversary, lo and behold, was in +Cambridge, Massachusetts! Whoever would have guessed it, in all the +world? It was three days after Carl's return from that awful +Freiburg summer—we left Nandy with a kind-hearted neighbor, +and away we spreed to Boston, to the matinée and something +good to eat.</p> +<p>Then, whoever would have imagined for a moment that the next +year we would be celebrating in Berlin—dinner at the +Café Rheingold, with wine! The fourth anniversary was at +Heidelberg—one of the red-letter days, as I look back upon +those magic years. We left home early, with our lunch, which we ate +on a bed of dry leaves in a fairy birch forest back—and a +good ways up—in the Odenwald. Then we walked and +walked—almost twenty-five miles all told—through little +forest hamlets, stopping now and then at some small inn along the +roadside for a cheese sandwich or a glass of beer. By nightfall we +reached Neckarsteinach and the railroad, and prowled around the +twisted narrow streets till train-time, gazing often at our beloved +Dilsberg crowning the hilltop across the river, her ancient castle +tower and town walls showing black against the starlight. The +happiness, the foreign untouristed wonder of that day!</p> +<p>Our fifth anniversary was another red-letter day—one of +the days that always made me feel, in looking back on it, that we +must have been people in a novel, an English novel; that it could +not really have been Carl and I who walked that perfect Saturday +from Swanage to Studland. But it was our own two joyous souls who +explored that quaint English thatched-roof, moss-covered corner of +creation; who poked about the wee old mouldy church and cemetery; +who had tea and muffins and jam out under an old gnarled apple tree +behind a thatched-roof cottage. What a wonder of a day it was! And +indeed it was my Carl and I who walked the few miles home toward +sunset, swinging hands along the downs, and fairly speechless with +the glory of five years married and England and our love. I should +like to be thinking of that day just before I die. It was so +utterly perfect, and so ours.</p> +<p>Our sixth anniversary was another, yes, yet another red-letter +memory—one of those times that the world seemed to have been +leading up to since it first cooled down. We left our robust sons +in the care of our beloved aunt, Elsie Turner,—this was back +in Berkeley,—and one Saturday we fared forth, plus +sleeping-bags, frying-pan, fishing-rod, and a rifle. We rode to the +end of the Ocean Shore Line—but first got off the train at +Half Moon Bay, bought half a dozen eggs from a lonely-looking +female, made for the beach, and fried said eggs for supper. Then we +got back on another train, and stepped off at the end of the line, +in utter darkness. We decided that somewhere we should find a +suitable wooded nook where we could sequester ourselves for the +night. We stumbled along until we could not see another inch in +front of us for the dark and the thick fog; so made +camp—which meant spreading out two bags—in what looked +like as auspicious a spot as was findable. When we opened our eyes +to the morning sunlight, we discovered we were on a perfectly +barren open ploughed piece of land, and had slept so near the road +that if a machine passing along in the night had skidded out a bit +to the side, it would have removed our feet.</p> +<p>That day, Sunday, was our anniversary, and the Lord was with us +early and late, though not obtrusively. We got a farmer out of bed +to buy some eggs for our breakfast. He wanted to know what we were +doing out so early, anyhow. We told him, celebrating our sixth +wedding anniversary. Whereat he positively refused to take a cent +for the eggs—wedding present, he said. Around noon we passed +a hunter, who stopped to chat, and ended by presenting us with a +cotton-tail rabbit to cook for dinner. And such a dinner!—by +a bit of a stream up in the hills. That afternoon, late, we +stumbled on a deserted farmhouse almost at the summit—trees +laden with apples and the ground red with them, pears and a few +peaches for the picking, and a spring of ice-cold water with one +lost fat trout in it that I tried for hours to catch by fair means +or foul; but he merely waved his tail slowly, as if to say, "One +wedding present you don't get!" We slept that night on some hay +left in an old barn—lots of mice and gnawy things about; but +I could not get nearly as angry at a gnawy mouse as at a fat +conceited trout who refused to be caught.</p> +<p>Next day was a holiday, so we kept on our way rejoicing, and +slept that night under great redwoods, beside a stream where trout +had better manners. After a fish breakfast we potted a tin can full +of holes with the rifle, and then bore down circuitously and +regretfully on Redwood City and the Southern Pacific Railway, and +home and college and dishes to wash and socks to darn—but +uproarious and joyful sons to compensate.</p> +<p>The seventh anniversary was less exciting, but that could not be +helped. We were over in Alamo, with my father, small brother, and +sister visiting us at the time—or rather, of course, the +place was theirs to begin with. There was no one to leave the +blessed sons with; also, Carl was working for the Immigration and +Housing Commission, and no holidays. But he managed to get home a +bit early; we had an early supper, got the sons in bed, hitched up +the old horse to the old cart, and off we fared in the moonlight, +married seven years and not sorry. We just poked about, ending at +Danville with Danville ice-cream and Danville pumpkin pie; then +walked the horse all the way back to Alamo and home.</p> +<p>Our eighth anniversary, as mentioned, was in our very own home +in Berkeley, with the curtains drawn, the telephone plugged, and +our Europe spread out before our eyes.</p> +<p>The ninth anniversary was still too soon after the June-Bug's +arrival for me to get off the hill and back, up our two hundred and +seventeen steps home, so we celebrated under our own roof +again—this time with a roast chicken and ice-cream dinner, +and with the entire family participating—except the June-Bug, +who did almost nothing then but sleep. I tell you, if ever we had +chicken, the bones were not worth salvaging by the time we got +through. We made it last at least two meals, and a starving torn +cat would pass by what was left with a scornful sniff.</p> +<p>Our tenth and last anniversary was in Seattle. Carl had to be at +Camp Lewis all day, but he got back in time to meet me at +six-thirty in the lobby of the Hotel Washington. From there we went +to our own favorite place—Blanc's—for dinner. Shut away +behind a green lattice arbor-effect, we celebrated ten years of joy +and riches and deep contentment, and as usual asked ourselves, +"What in the world shall we be doing a year from now? Where in the +world shall we be?" And as usual we answered, "Bring the future +what it may, we have <i>ten years</i> that no power in heaven or +earth can rob us of!"</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>There was another occasion in our lives that I want to put down +in black and white, though it does not come under wedding +anniversaries. But it was such a celebration! "Uncle Max" 'lowed +that before we left Berkeley we must go off on a spree with him, +and suggested—imagine!—Del Monte! The +twelve-and-a-half-cent Parkers at Del Monte! That was one spot we +had never seen ourselves even riding by. We got our beloved Nurse +Balch out to stay with the young, and when a brand-new green Pierce +Arrow, about the size of our whole living-room, honked without, we +were ready, bag and baggage, for a spree such as we had never +imagined ourselves having in this world or the next. We called for +the daughter of the head of the Philosophy Department. Max had said +to bring a friend along to make four; so, four, we whisked the dust +of Berkeley from our wheels and—presto—Del Monte!</p> +<p>Parents of three children, who do most of their own work +besides, do not need to be told in detail what those four days +meant. Parents of three children know what the hours of, say, seven +to nine mean, at home; nor does work stop at nine. It is one mad +whirl to get the family ears washed and teeth cleaned, and "Chew +your mush!" and "Wipe your mouth!" and "Where's your speller?" and +"Jim, come back here and put on your rubbers!" ("Where are my +rubbers?" Ach Gott! where?) Try six times to get the +butcher—line busy. Breakfast dishes to clear up; baby to +bathe, dress, feed. Count the laundry. Forget all about the butcher +until fifteen minutes before dinner. Laundry calls. Telephone rings +seven times. Neighbor calls to borrow an egg. Telephone the milkman +for a pound of butter. Make the beds,—telephone rings in the +middle,—two beds do not get made till three. Start lunch. +Wash the baby's clothes. Telephone rings three times while you are +in the basement. Rice burns. Door-bell—gas and electric bill. +Telephone rings. Patch boys' overalls. Water-bill. Stir the +pudding. Telephone rings. Try to read at least the table of +contents of the "New Republic." Neighbor calls to return some +flour. Stir the pudding again. Mad stamping up the front steps. +Sons home. Forget to scrape their feet. Forget to take off their +rubbers. Dad's whistle. Hurray! Lunch.—Let's stop about here, +and return to Del Monte.</p> +<p>This is where music would help. The Home <i>motif</i> would +be—I do not know those musical terms, but a lot of jumpy +notes up and down the piano, fast and never catching up. Del Monte +<i>motif</i> slow, lazy melody—ending with dance-music for +night-time. In plain English, what Del Monte meant was a care-free, +absolutely care-free, jaunt into another world. It was not our +world,—we could have been happy forever did we never lay eyes +on Del Monte,—and yet, oh, it was such fun! Think of lazing +in bed till eight or eight-thirty, then taking a leisurely bath, +then dressing and deliberately using up time doing it—put one +shoe on and look at it a spell; then, when you are good and ready, +put on the next. Just feeling sort of spunky about it—just +wanting to show some one that time is nothing to you—what's +the hurry?</p> +<p>Then—oh, what <i>motif</i> in music could do a Del Monte +breakfast justice? Just yesterday you were gulping down a bite, in +between getting the family fed and off. Here you were, holding +hands under the table to make sure you were not dreaming, while you +took minutes and minutes to eat fruit and mush and eggs and coffee +and waffles, and groaned to think there was still so much on the +menu that would cost you nothing to keep on consuming, but where, +oh, where, put it? After rocking a spell in the sun on the front +porch, the green Pierce Arrow appears, and all honk off for the +day—four boxes of picnic lunch stowed away by a gracious +waiter; not a piece of bread for it did you have to spread +yourself. Basking in the sun under cypress trees, talking over +every subject under heaven; back in time for a swim, a rest before +dinner; then dinner (why, oh, why has the human such biological +limitations?). Then a concert, then dancing, then—crowning +glory of an unlimited bank-account—Napa soda +lemonade—and bed. Oh, what a four days!</p> +<p>In thinking over the intimate things of our life together, I +have difficulty in deciding what the finest features of it were. +There was so much that made it rich, so much to make me realize I +was blessed beyond any one else, that I am indebted to the world +forever for the color that living with Carl Parker gave to +existence. Perhaps one of the most helpful memories to me now is +the thought of his absolute faith in me. From the time we were +first in love, it meant a new zest in life to know that Carl firmly +believed there was nothing I could not do. For all that I hold no +orthodox belief in immortality, I could no more get away from the +idea that, if I fail in anything now—why I <i>can't</i> +fail—think of Carl's faith in me! About four days before he +died, he looked up at me once as I was arranging his pillow and +said, so seriously, "You know, there isn't a university in the +country that wouldn't give you your Ph.D. without your taking an +examination for it." He was delirious, it is true; but nevertheless +it expressed, though indeed in a very exaggerated form, the way he +had of thinking I was somebody! I knew there was no one in the +world like him, but I had sound reasons for that. Oh, but it is +wonderful to live with some one who thinks you are wonderful! It +does not make you conceited, not a bit, but it makes a happy +singing feeling in your heart to feel that the one you love best in +the world is proud of you. And there is always the incentive of +vowing that some day you will justify it all.</p> +<p>The fun of dressing for a party in a hand-me-down dress from +some relative, knowing that the one you want most to please will +honestly believe; and say on the way home, that you were the +best-looking one at the party! The fun of cooking for a man who +thinks every dish set before him is the best food he <i>ever</i> +ate—and not only say it, but act that way. ("That was just a +sample. Give me a real dish of it, now that I know it's the best +pudding I ever tasted!")</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVI" id="CHAPTER_XVI"></a>CHAPTER XVI</h2> +<p>As soon as the I.W.W. article was done, Carl had to begin on his +paper to be read before the Economic Association, just after +Christmas, in Philadelphia. That was fun working over. "Come up +here and let me read you this!" And we'd go over that much of the +paper together. Then more reading to Miss Van Doren, more +correctings, finally finishing it just the day before he had to +leave. But that was partly because he had to leave earlier than +expected. The Government had telegraphed him to go on to +Washington, to mediate a threatened longshoremen's strike. Carl +worked harder over the longshoremen than over any other single +labor difficulty, not excepting the eight-hour day in lumber. Here +again I do not feel free to go into details. The matter was +finally, at Carl's suggestion, taken to Washington.</p> +<p>The longshoremen interested Carl for the same reason that the +migratory and the I.W.W. interested him; in fact, there were many +I.W.W. among them. It was the lower stratum of the +labor-world—hard physical labor, irregular work, and, on the +whole, undignified treatment by the men set over them. And they +reacted as Carl expected men in such a position to react. Yet, on +the side of the workers, he felt that in this particular instance +it was a case of men being led by stubborn egotistical union +delegates not really representing the wishes of the rank and file +of union members, their main idea being to compromise on nothing. +On the other hand, be it said that he considered the employers he +had to deal with here the fairest, most open-minded, most anxious +to compromise in the name of justice, of all the groups of +employers he ever had to deal with. The whole affair was +nerve-racking, as is best illustrated by the fact that, while Carl +was able to hold the peace as long as he was on the job, three days +after his death the situation "blew up."</p> +<p>On his way East he stopped off in Spokane, to talk with the +lumbermen east of the mountains. There, at a big meeting, he was +able to put over the eight-hour day. The Wilson Mediation +Commission was in Seattle at the time. Felix Frankfurter telephoned +out his congratulations to me, and said: "We consider it the single +greatest achievement of its kind since the United States entered +the war." The papers were full of it and excitement ran high. +President Wilson was telegraphed to by the Labor Commission, and he +in turn telegraphed back his pleasure. In addition, the East Coast +lumbermen agreed to Carl's scheme of an employment manager for +their industry, and detailed him to find a man for the job while in +the East. My, but I was excited!</p> +<p>Not only that, but they bade fair to let him inaugurate a system +which would come nearer than any chance he could have expected to +try out on a big scale his theories on the proper handling of +labor. The men were to have the sanest recreation devisable for +their needs and interests—out-of-door sports, movies, housing +that would permit of dignified family life, recreation centres, +good and proper food, alteration in the old order of "hire and +fire," and general control over the men. Most employers argued: +"Don't forget that the type of men we have in the lumber camps +won't know how to make use of a single reform you suggest, and +probably won't give a straw for the whole thing." To which Carl +would reply: "Don't forget that your old conditions have drawn the +type of man you have. This won't change men over-night by a long +shot, but it will at once relieve the tension—and see, in +five years, if your type itself has not undergone a change."</p> +<p>From Washington, D.C., he wrote: "This city is one mad mess of +men, desolate, and hunting for folks they should see, overcharged +by hotels, and away from their wives." The red-letter event of +Washington was when he was taken for tea to Justice Brandeis's. "We +talked I.W.W., unemployment, etc., and he was oh, so grand!" A few +days later, two days before Christmas, Mrs. Brandeis telephoned and +asked him for Christmas dinner! That was a great event in the +Parker annals—Justice Brandeis having been a hero among us +for some years. Carl wrote: "He is all he is supposed to be and +more." He in turn wrote me after Carl's death: "Our country shares +with you the great loss. Your husband was among the very few +Americans who possessed the character, knowledge, and insight which +are indispensable in dealing effectively with our labor-problem. +Appreciation of his value was coming rapidly, and events were +enforcing his teachings. His journey to the East brought +inspiration to many; and I seek comfort in the thought that, among +the students at the University, there will be some at least who are +eager to carry forward his work."</p> +<p>There were sessions with Gompers, Meyer Bloomfield, Secretary +Baker, Secretary Daniels, the Shipping Board, and many others.</p> +<p>Then, at Philadelphia, came the most telling single event of our +economic lives—Carl's paper before the Economic Association +on "Motives in Economic Life." At the risk of repeating to some +extent the ideas quoted from previous papers, I shall record here a +few statements from this one, as it gives the last views he held on +his field of work.</p> +<p>"Our conventional economics to-day analyzes no phase of +industrialism or the wage-relationship, or citizenship in pecuniary +society, in a manner to offer a key to such distressing and complex +problems as this. Human nature riots to-day through our economic +structure, with ridicule and destruction; and we economists look on +helpless and aghast. The menace of the war does not seem potent to +quiet revolt or still class cries. The anxiety and apprehension of +the economist should not be produced by this cracking of his +economic system, but by the poverty of the criticism of +industrialism which his science offers. Why are economists mute in +the presence of a most obvious crisis in our industrial society? +Why have our criticisms of industrialism no sturdy warnings about +this unhappy evolution? Why does an agitated officialdom search +to-day in vain among our writings, for scientific advice touching +labor-inefficiency or industrial disloyalty, for prophecies and +plans about the rise in our industrialism of economic classes +unharmonious and hostile?</p> +<p>"The fair answer seems this: We economists speculate little on +human motives. We are not curious about the great basis of fact +which dynamic and behavioristic psychology has gathered to +illustrate the instinct stimulus to human activity. Most of us are +not interested to think of what a psychologically full or +satisfying life is. We are not curious to know that a great school +of behavior analysis called the Freudian has been built around the +analysis of the energy outbursts brought by society's balking of +the native human instincts. Our economic literature shows that we +are but rarely curious to know whether industrialism is suited to +man's inherited nature, or what man in turn will do to our rules of +economic conduct in case these rules are repressive. The motives to +economic activity which have done the major service in orthodox +economic texts and teachings have been either the vague +middle-class virtues of thrift, justice, and solvency, or the +equally vague moral sentiments of 'striving for the welfare of +others,' 'desire for the larger self,' 'desire to equip one's self +well,' or, lastly, the labor-saving deduction that man is +stimulated in all things economic by his desire to satisfy his +wants with the smallest possible effort. All this gentle parody in +motive theorizing continued contemporaneously with the output of +the rich literature of social and behavioristic psychology which +was almost entirely addressed to this very problem of human motives +in modern economic society. Noteworthy exceptions are the +remarkable series of books by Veblen, the articles and criticisms +of Mitchell and Patten, and the most significant small book by +Taussig, entitled 'Inventors and Money-makers.' It is this +complementary field of psychology to which the economists must +turn, as these writers have turned, for a vitalization of their +basic hypotheses. There awaits them a bewildering array of studies +of the motives, emotions, and folkways of our pecuniary +civilization. Generalizations and experiment statistics abound, +ready-made for any structure of economic criticism. The human +motives are isolated, described, compared. Business confidence, the +release of work-energy, advertising appeal, market vagaries, the +basis of value computations, decay of workmanship, the labor +unrest, decline in the thrift habit, are the subjects treated.</p> +<p>"All human activity is untiringly actuated by the demand for +realization of the instinct wants. If an artificially limited field +of human endeavor be called economic life, all its so-called +motives hark directly back to the human instincts for their origin. +<i>There are, in truth, no economic motives as such.</i> The +motives of economic life are the same as those of the life of art, +of vanity and ostentation, of war and crime, of sex. Economic life +is merely the life in which instinct gratification is alleged to +take on a rational pecuniary habit form. Man is not less a father, +with a father's parental instinct, just because he passes down the +street from his home to his office. His business raid into his +rival's market has the same naïve charm that tickled the heart +of his remote ancestor when in the night he rushed the herds of a +near-by clan. A manufacturer tries to tell a conventional world +that he resists the closed shop because it is un-American, it loses +him money, or it is inefficient. A few years ago he was more +honest, when he said he would run his business as he wished and +would allow no man to tell him what to do. His instinct of +leadership, reinforced powerfully by his innate instinctive +revulsion to the confinement of the closed shop, gave the true +stimulus. His opposition is psychological, not ethical."</p> +<p>He then goes on to catalogue and explain the following instincts +which he considered of basic importance in any study of economics: +(1) gregariousness; (2) parental bent, motherly behavior, +kindliness; (3) curiosity, manipulation, workmanship; (4) +acquisition, collecting, ownership; (5) fear and flight; (6) mental +activity, thought; (7) the housing or settling instinct; (8) +migration, homing; (9) hunting ("Historic revivals of hunting urge +make an interesting recital of religious inquisitions, +witch-burnings, college hazings, persecution of suffragettes, of +the I.W.W., of the Japanese, or of pacifists. All this goes on +often under naïve rationalization about justice and +patriotism, but it is pure and innate lust to run something down +and hurt it"); (10) anger, pugnacity; (11) revolt at confinement, +at being limited in liberty of action and choice; (12) revulsion; +(13) leadership and mastery; (14) subordination, submission; (15) +display, vanity, ostentation; (166) sex.</p> +<p>After quoting from Professor Cannon, and discussing the +contributions that his studies have made to the subject of man's +reaction to his immediate environment, he continues:—</p> +<p>"The conclusion seems both scientific and logical, that behavior +in anger, fear, pain, and hunger is a basically different behavior +from behavior under repose and economic security. The emotions +generated under the conditions of existence-peril seem to make the +emotions and motives generative in quiet and peace pale and +unequal. It seems impossible to avoid the conclusion that the most +vital part of man's inheritance is one which destines him to +continue for some myriads of years ever a fighting animal when +certain conditions exist in his environment. Though, through +education, man be habituated in social and intelligent behavior or, +through license, in sexual debauchery, still, at those times when +his life or liberty is threatened, his instinct-emotional nature +will inhibit either social thought or sex ideas, and present him as +merely an irrational fighting animal. . . .</p> +<p>"The instincts and their emotions, coupled with the obedient +body, lay down in scientific and exact description the motives +which must and will determine human conduct. If a physical +environment set itself against the expression of these instinct +motives, the human organism is fully and efficiently prepared for a +tenacious and destructive revolt against this environment; and if +the antagonism persist, the organism is ready to destroy itself and +disappear as a species if it fail of a psychical mutation which +would make the perverted order endurable."</p> +<p>And in conclusion, he states:—</p> +<p>"The dynamic psychology of to-day describes the present +civilization as a repressive environment. For a great number of its +inhabitants a sufficient self-expression is denied. There is, for +those who care to see, a deep and growing unrest and pessimism. +With the increase in knowledge is coming a new realization of the +irrational direction of economic evolution. The economists, +however, view economic inequality and life-degradation as objects +in truth outside the science. Our value-concept is a +price-mechanism hiding behind a phrase. If we are to play a part in +the social readjustment immediately ahead, we must put human nature +and human motives into our basic hypotheses. Our value-concept must +be the yardstick to measure just how fully things and institutions +contribute to a full psychological life. We must know more of the +meaning of progress. The domination of society by one economic +class has for its chief evil the thwarting of the instinct life of +the subordinate class and the perversion of the upper class. The +extent and characteristics of this evil are to be estimated only +when we know the innate potentialities and inherited propensities +of man; and the ordering of this knowledge and its application to +the changeable economic structure is the task before the trained +economist to-day."</p> +<p>A little later I saw one of the big men who was at that Economic +Association meeting, and he said: "I don't see why Parker isn't +spoiled. He was the most talked-about man at the Convention." Six +publishing houses wrote, after that paper, to see if he could +enlarge it into a book. Somehow it did seem as if now more than +ever the world was ours. We looked ahead into the future, and +wondered if it could seem as good to any one as it did to us. It +was almost <i>too</i> good—we were dazed a bit by it. It is +one of the things I just cannot let myself ever think of—that +future and the plans we had. Anything I can ever do now would still +leave life so utterly dull by comparison.</p> +<hr style="width: 65%;" /> +<h2><a name="CHAPTER_XVII" id="CHAPTER_XVII"></a>CHAPTER XVII</h2> +<p>One of the days in Seattle that I think of most was about a +month before the end. The father of a great friend of ours died, +and Carl and I went to the funeral one Sunday afternoon. We got in +late, so stood in a corner by the door, and held hands, and seemed +to own each other especially hard that day. Afterwards we prowled +around the streets, talking of funerals and old age.</p> +<p>Most of the people there that afternoon were +gray-haired—the family had lived in Seattle for years and +years, and these were the friends of years and years back. Carl +said: "That is something we can't have when you and I die—the +old, old friends who have stood by us year in and year out. It is +one of the phases of life you sacrifice when you move around at the +rate we do. But in the first place, neither of us wants a funeral, +and in the second place, we feel that moving gives more than it +takes away—so we are satisfied."</p> +<p>Then we talked about our own old age—planned it in detail. +Carl declared: "I want you to promise me faithfully you will make +me stop teaching when I am sixty. I have seen too much of the +tragedy of men hanging on and on and students and education being +sacrificed because the teacher has lost his fire—has fallen +behind in the parade. I feel now as if I'd never grow +old—that doesn't mean that I won't. So, no matter how strong +I may be going at sixty, make me stop—promise."</p> +<p>Then we discussed our plans: by that time the children would be +looking out for themselves,—very much so,—and we could +plan as we pleased. It was to be England—some suburb outside +of London, where we could get into big things, and yet where we +could be peaceful and by ourselves, and read and write, and have +the young economists who were traveling about, out to spend +week-ends with us; and then we could keep our grandchildren while +their parents were traveling in Europe! About a month from that +day, he was dead.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>There is a path I must take daily to my work at college, which +passes through the University Botanical Garden. Every day I must +brace myself for it, for there, growing along the path, is a clump +of old-fashioned morning glories. Always, from the time we first +came back to teach in Berkeley and passed along that same path to +the University, we planned to have morning glories like +those—the odor came to meet you yards away—growing +along the path to the little home we would at last settle down in +when we were old. We used always to remark pictures in the +newspapers, of So-and-so on their "golden anniversary," and would +plan about our own "golden wedding-day"—old age together +always seemed so good to think about. There was a time when we used +to plan to live in a lighthouse, way out on some point, when we got +old. It made a strong appeal, it really did. We planned many ways +of growing old—not that we talked of it often, perhaps twice +a year, but always, always it was, of course, <i>together</i>. +Strange, that neither of us ever dreamed one would grow old without +the other.</p> +<p>And yet, too, there is the other side. I found a letter written +during our first summer back in Berkeley, just after we had said +good-bye at the station when Carl left for Chicago. Among other +things he wrote: "It just makes me feel bad to see other folks +living put-in lives, when we two (four) have loved through Harvard +and Europe and it has only commenced, and no one is loving so hard +or living so happily. . . . I am most willing to die now (if you +die with me), for we have lived one complete life of joy already." +And then he added—if only the adding of it could have made it +come true: "But we have fifty years yet of love."</p> +<p>Oh, it was so true that we packed into ten years the happiness +that could normally be considered to last a lifetime—a long +lifetime. Sometimes it seems almost as if we must have guessed it +was to end so soon, and lived so as to crowd in all the joy we +could while our time together was given us. I say so often that I +stand right now the richest woman in the world—why talk of +sympathy? I have our three precious, marvelously healthy children, +I have perfect health myself, I have all and more than I can handle +of big ambitious maturing plans, with a chance to see them carried +out, I have enough to live on, and, greatest of all, fifteen years +of perfect memories—And yet, to hear a snatch of a tune and +know that the last time you heard it you were +together—perhaps it was the very music they played as you +left the theatre arm-in-arm that last night; to put on a dress you +have not worn for some time and remember that, when you last had it +on, it was the night you went, just the two of you, to Blanc's for +dinner; to meet unexpectedly some friend, and recall that the last +time you saw him it was that night you two, strolling with hands +clasped, met him on Second Avenue accidentally, and chatted on the +corner; to come across a necktie in a trunk, to read a book he had +marked, to see his handwriting—perhaps just the address on an +old baggage-check—Oh, one can sound so much braver than one +feels! And then, because you have tried so hard to live up to the +pride and faith he had in you, to be told: "You know I am surprised +that you haven't taken Carl's death harder. You seem to be just the +same exactly."</p> +<p>What is <i>seeming</i>? Time and time again, these months, I +have thought, what do any of us know about what another person +<i>feels</i>? A smile—a laugh—I used to think of course +they stood for happiness. There can be many smiles, much laughter, +and it means—nothing. But surely anything is kinder for a +friend to see than tears!</p> +<p>When Carl returned from the East in January, he was more rushed +than ever—his time more filled than ever with strike +mediations, street-car arbitrations, cost of living surveys for the +Government, conferences on lumber production. In all, he had +mediated thirty-two strikes, sat on two arbitration boards, made +three cost-of-living surveys for the Government. (Mediations did +gall him—he grew intellectually impatient over this eternal +patching up of what he was wont to call "a rotten system." Of +course he saw the war-emergency need of it just then, but what he +wanted to work on was, why were mediations ever necessary? what +social and economic order would best ensure absence of +friction?)</p> +<p>On the campus work piled up. He had promised to give a course on +Employment Management, especially to train men to go into the +lumber industries with a new vision. (Each big company east of the +mountains was to send a representative.) It was also open to +seniors in college, and a splendid group it was, almost every one +pledged to take up employment management as their vocation on +graduation—no fear that they would take it up with a +capitalist bias. Then—his friends and I had to laugh, it was +so like him—the afternoon of the morning he arrived, he was +in the thick of a scrap on the campus over a principle he held to +tenaciously—the abolition of the one-year modern-language +requirement for students in his college. To use his own expression, +he "went to the bat on it," and at a faculty meeting that afternoon +it carried. He had been working his little campaign for a couple of +months, but in his absence in the East the other side had been +busy. He returned just in time for the fray. Every one knows what a +farce one year of a modern language is at college; even several of +the language teachers themselves were frank enough to admit it. But +it was an academic tradition! I think the two words that upset Carl +most were "efficiency" and "tradition"—both being used too +often as an excuse for practices that did more harm than good.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>And then came one Tuesday, the fifth of March. He had his hands +full all morning with the continued threatened upheavals of the +longshoremen. About noon the telephone rang—threatened strike +in all the flour-mills; Dr. Parker must come at once. (I am +reminded of a description which was published of Carl as a +mediator. "He thought of himself as a physician and of an industry +on strike as the patient. And he did not merely ease the patient's +pain with opiates. He used the knife and tried for permanent +cures.") I finally reached him by telephone; his voice sounded +tired, for he had had a very hard morning. By one o'clock he was +working on the flour-mill situation. He could not get home for +dinner. About midnight he appeared, having sat almost twelve hours +steadily on the new flour-difficulty. He was "all in," he said.</p> +<p>The next morning, one of the rare instances in our years +together, he claimed that he did not feel like getting up. But +there were four important conferences that day to attend to, +besides his work at college. He dressed, ate breakfast, then said +he felt feverish. His temperature was 102. I made him get back into +bed—let all the conferences on earth explode. The next day +his temperature was 105. "This has taught us our lesson—no +more living at this pace. I don't need two reminders that I ought +to call a halt." Thursday, Friday, and Saturday he lay there, too +weary to talk, not able to sleep at all nights; the doctor coming +regularly, but unable to tell just what the trouble was, other than +a "breakdown."</p> +<p>Saturday afternoon he felt a little better; we planned then what +we would do when he got well. The doctor had said that he should +allow himself at least a month before going back to college. One +month given to us! "Just think of the writing I can get done, being +around home with my family!" There was an article for Taussig half +done to appear in the "Quarterly Journal of Economics," a more +technical analysis of the I.W.W. than had appeared in the "Atlantic +Monthly"; he had just begun a review for the "American Journal of +Economics" of Hoxie's "Trade-Unionism." Then he was full of ideas +for a second article he had promised the "Atlantic"—"Is the +United States a Nation?"—"And think of being able to see all +I want of the June-Bug!"</p> +<p>Since he had not slept for three nights, the doctor left powders +which I was to give him for Saturday night. Still he could not +sleep. He thought that, if I read aloud to him in a monotonous tone +of voice, he could perhaps drop off. I got a high-school copy of +"From Milton to Tennyson," and read every sing-songy poem I could +find—"The Ancient Mariner" twice, hardly pronouncing the +words as I droned along. Then he began to get delirious.</p> +<p>It is a very terrifying experience—to see for the first +time a person in a delirium, and that person the one you love most +on earth. All night long I sat there trying to quiet him—it +was always some mediation, some committee of employers he was +attending. He would say: "I am so tired—can't you people come +to some agreement, so that I can go home and sleep?"</p> +<p>At first I would say: "Dearest, you must be quiet and try to go +to sleep."—"But I can't leave the meeting!" He would look at +me in such distress. So I learned my part, and at each new +discussion he would get into, I would suggest: "Here's Will Ogburn +just come—he'll take charge of the meeting for you. You come +home with me and go to sleep." So he would introduce Will to the +gathering, and add: "Gentlemen, my wife wants me to go home with +her and go to sleep—good-bye." For a few moments he would be +quiet. Then, "O my Lord, something to investigate! What is it this +time?" I would cut in hastily: "The Government feels next week will +be plenty of time for this investigation." He would look at me +seriously. "Did you ever know the Government to give you a week's +time to begin?" Then, "Telegrams—more telegrams! Nobody keeps +their word, nobody."</p> +<p>About six o'clock in the morning I could wait no longer and +called the doctor. He pronounced it pneumonia—an absolutely +different case from any he had ever seen: no sign of it the day +before, though it was what he had been watching for all along. +Every hospital in town was full. A splendid trained nurse came at +once to the house—"the best nurse in the whole city," the +doctor announced with relief.</p> +<p>Wednesday afternoon the crisis seemed to have passed. That whole +evening he was himself, and I—I was almost delirious from +sheer joy. To hear his dear voice again just talking naturally! He +noticed the nurse for the first time. He was jovial—happy. "I +am going to get some fun out of this now!" he smiled. "And oh, +won't we have a time, my girl, while I am convalescing!" And we +planned the rosiest weeks any one ever planned. Thursday the nurse +shaved him—he not only joked and talked like his dear old +self—he looked it as well. (All along he had been +cheerful—always told the doctor he was "feeling fine"; never +complained of anything. It amused the doctor so one morning, when +he was leaning over listening to Carl's heart and lungs, as he lay +in more or less of a doze and partial delirium. A twinkle suddenly +came into Carl's eye. "You sprung a new necktie on me this morning, +didn't you?" Sure enough, it was new.)</p> +<p>Thursday morning the nurse was preparing things for his bath in +another room and I was with Carl. The sun was streaming in through +the windows and my heart was too contented for words. He said: "Do +you know what I've been thinking of so much this morning? I've been +thinking of what it must be to go through a terrible illness and +not have some one you loved desperately around. I say to myself all +the while: 'Just think, my girl was here all the time—my girl +will be here all the time!' I've lain here this morning and +wondered more than ever what good angel was hovering over me the +day I met you."</p> +<p>I put this in because it is practically the last thing he said +before delirium came on again, and I love to think of it. He said +really more than that.</p> +<p>In the morning he would start calling for me early—the +nurse would try to soothe him for a while, then would call me. I +wanted to be in his room at night, but they would not let +me—there was an unborn life to be thought of those days, too. +As soon as I reached his bed, he would clasp my hand and hold it +oh, so tight. "I've been groping for you all night—all night! +Why <i>don't</i> they let me find you?" Then, in a moment, he would +not know I was there. Daytimes I had not left him five minutes, +except for my meals. Several nights they had finally let me be by +him, anyway. Saturday morning for the first time since the crisis +the doctor was encouraged. "Things are really looking up," and "You +go out for a few moments in the sun!"</p> +<p>I walked a few blocks to the Mudgetts' in our department, to +tell them the good news, and then back; but my heart sank to its +depths again as soon as I entered Carl's room. The delirium always +affected me that way: to see the vacant stare in his eyes—no +look of recognition when I entered.</p> +<p>The nurse went out that afternoon. "He's doing nicely," was the +last thing she said. She had not been gone half an hour—it +was just two-fifteen—and I was lying on her bed watching +Carl, when he called, "Buddie, I'm going—come hold my hand." +O my God—I dashed for him, I clung to him, I told him he +could not, must not go—we needed him too terribly, we loved +him too much to spare him. I felt so sure of it, that I said: "Why, +my love is enough to <i>keep</i> you here!"</p> +<p>He would not let me leave him to call the doctor. I just knelt +there holding both his hands with all my might, talking, talking, +telling him we were not going to let him go. And then, at last, the +color came back into his face, he nodded his head a bit, and said, +"I'll stay," very quietly. Then I was able to rush for the stairs +and tell Mrs. Willard to telephone for the doctor. Three doctors we +had that afternoon. They reported the case as "dangerous, but not +absolutely hopeless." His heart, which had been so wonderful all +along, had given out. That very morning the doctor had said: "I +wish my pulse was as strong as that!" and there he lay—no +pulse at all. They did everything: our own doctor stayed till about +ten, then left, with Carl resting fairly easily. He lived only a +block away.</p> +<p>About one-thirty the nurse had me call the doctor again. I could +see things were going wrong. Once Carl started to talk rather loud. +I tried to quiet him and he said: "Twice I've pulled and fought and +struggled to live just for you [one of the times had been during +the crisis]. Let me just talk if I want to. I can't make the fight +a third time—I'm so tired."</p> +<p>Before the doctor could get there, he was dead.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>With our beliefs what they were, there was only one thing to be +done. We had never discussed it in detail, but I felt absolutely +sure I was doing as he would have me do. His body was cremated, +without any service whatsoever—nobody present but one of his +brothers and a great friend. The next day the two men scattered his +ashes out on the waters of Puget Sound. I feel it was as he would +have had it.</p> +<hr style='width: 45%;' /> +<p>"Out of your welded lives—welded in spirit and in the +comradeship that you had in his splendid work—you know +everything that I could say.</p> +<p>"I grieve for you deeply—and I rejoice for any woman who, +for even a few short years, is given the great gift in such a +form."</p> +<p>THE END</p> + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's An American Idyll, by Cornelia Stratton Parker + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK AN AMERICAN IDYLL *** + +***** This file should be named 14943-h.htm or 14943-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/4/9/4/14943/ + +Produced by Rick Niles, Charlie Kirschner and the PG Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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