"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.

"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."

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,—

"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.e., 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."

From the same article:—

"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."

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.

February 28, 1917

MY DEAR CARLETON PARKER,—

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.

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 only light.

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?

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.

You are dedicated to the pursuit of Truth, and you afford us the dramatic incidents of your pursuit.

Yet up to this moment it seems to me you are accepting Truth at second-hand.

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?

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.

I feel this danger for you, and for the youths you are to educate, so poignantly that I venture to write with this frankness.

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.

You 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.

Very sincerely yours, BRUCE PORTER.

MY DEAR BRUCE PORTER,—

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.

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.

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.

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.

Sincerely yours, Carleton H. Parker.



CHAPTER XIII

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.

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.

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.

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.

"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[1]."

[Footnote 1: Robert Bruere, in the New Republic, May 18, 1918.]

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?"

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.

* * * * *

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."

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.

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!"

An article appeared in one of the New York papers recently, entitled "How Carleton H. Parker Settled Strikes":—

"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. . . .

"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.

"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.

"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."



CHAPTER XIV

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.

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 had 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.

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!"

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.

"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.

"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. . . .

"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. . . .

"It is perhaps of value to quote the language of the most influential of the I.W.W. leaders.

"'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.'

"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."

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.

"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.

"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. . . .

"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.

"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."

In this same connection I quote from another article:—

"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."

* * * * *

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.

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."



CHAPTER XV

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.

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.

I quote here from two letters written by Washington students who had been under his influence but five months.

"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."

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 did matter—we had money enough to live on!! 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.

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!"

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 every day.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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!"

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:—

"Who's boss of this household, anyway?"

And I had to answer, "I am."

"Who gets her own way one hundred per cent?"

"I do."

"Who never gets his own way and never wants to get his own way?"

"You."

"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!"

* * * * *

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."

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.

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.

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?"

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.

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.

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."

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."

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.

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.

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?

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 matinee and something good to eat.

Then, whoever would have imagined for a moment that the next year we would be celebrating in Berlin—dinner at the Cafe 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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 ten years that no power in heaven or earth can rob us of!"

* * * * *

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!

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.

This is where music would help. The Home motif 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 motif 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?

Then—oh, what motif 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!

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 can't 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.

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 ever 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!")



CHAPTER XVI

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.

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."

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!

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."

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."

There were sessions with Gompers, Meyer Bloomfield, Secretary Baker, Secretary Daniels, the Shipping Board, and many others.

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.

"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?

"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.

"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. There are, in truth, no economic motives as such. 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 naive 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."

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 naive 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.

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:—

"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. . . .

"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."

And in conclusion, he states:—

"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."

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 too 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.



CHAPTER XVII

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.

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."

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."

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.

* * * * *

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, together. Strange, that neither of us ever dreamed one would grow old without the other.

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."

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."

What is seeming? Time and time again, these months, I have thought, what do any of us know about what another person feels? 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!

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?)

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.