was really more disheartening than complete demolition would have been,
for in the latter case we could have started to rebuild from the
beginning. I admired Bill greatly for the resolute way he set about the
painful business again. He went over every inch, here saying, “This
board is all right,” and there tearing out black pieces of charred wood.
It was a dirty job, but he stuck to it. Nevertheless, paint and stain as
we would, we could not quite get rid of the unmistakable and
ineradicable odor which clings around a burned building, almost like the
smell of death.
Next summer we moved in once more. But the house was never the same.
Never could I recapture that first flush of joy.
Grant, my second son, was born almost immediately. I loved having a baby
to tend again, and wanted at least four more as quickly as my health
would permit. I could not wait another five years. I yearned especially
for a daughter, and twenty months later my wish came true. After Peggy’s
birth, the doctor went downstairs and saw Bill sitting in the library
with Grant in his arms and tears welling from his eyes.
“Why, what’s the matter? There’s a nice little girl upstairs.”
“I’m thinking of this poor little boy. Margaret has wanted a girl so
long—now she’ll have no room in her heart for him.”
Bill’s fears were groundless. Grant was not supplanted, but Peggy was so
satisfactory a baby that I was not particularly disappointed when my
illness cropped up again and the doctor said my family must end at this
point. I was quite content with things as they were.
Even as a little fellow, the sandy-haired, square-built Stuart was
practical, loved sports, and had a reasoning, logical mind, always
experimenting with life as well as with mechanical things. A thorough
Higgins, he had to find out for himself and prove it. He used to stamp
and scold when presented with a chore, such as mowing the lawn or
bringing in wood for the fireplaces, but his rebellions were brief, and,
when he realized the inevitable, he turned it into a game. “Come on
over,” he hailed his friends. “We’ve lots to do. Let’s get to it! We’re
going to have great fun.”
The other boys, taken in by his enthusiastic invitations, also believed
that mowing the lawn or bringing in wood were among the best games
invented.
Grant was more self-conscious than Stuart, and more inarticulate, but
more affectionate. He followed the baby Peggy slavishly. They were
usually hand in hand, and Grant’s darkness contrasted with her bright,
blond hair. From the time she could talk they referred to themselves as
“we.” Peggy was the most independent child I have ever seen. At three
she knew what she wanted and where she was going. She was vivacious,
mischievous, laughing—the embodiment of all my hopes in a daughter.
Stuart typified the scientist, Grant the artist, Peggy the doer. It was
maternally gratifying to wonder whether they would carry out these
propensities in their later lives.
I enjoyed my literary activities along with my children, and Bill
encouraged me. “You go ahead and finish your writing. I’ll get the
dinner and wash the dishes.” And what is more he did it, drawing the
shades, however, so that nobody could see him. He thought I should make
a career of it instead of limiting myself to small-town interests.
Both Bill and I were feeling what amounted to a world hunger, the pull
and haul towards wider horizons. For him Paris was still over the next
hill. I was not able to express my discontent with the futility of my
present course, but after my experience as a nurse with fundamentals
this quiet withdrawal into the tame domesticity of the pretty riverside
settlement seemed to be bordering on stagnation. I felt as though we had
drifted into a swamp, but we would not wait for the tide to set us free.
It was hopeless to emphasize the importance of practical necessities to
an artist, and consequently I decided to resume nursing in order to earn
my share. We had spent years building our home and used it only for a
brief while. I was glad to leave when, in one of our financial doldrums,
we plunged back into the rushing stream of New York life.
_Chapter Six_
FANATICS OF THEIR PURE IDEALS
We took an apartment way uptown. It was the old-fashioned railroad
type—big, high-ceilinged, with plenty of room, air, and light. The
children’s grandmother came to live with us and her presence gave me
ease of mind when I was called on a case; my children were utterly safe
in her care.
Headlong we dived into one of the most interesting phases of life the
United States has ever seen. Radicalism in manners, art, industry,
morals, politics was effervescing, and the lid was about to blow off in
the Great War. John Spargo, an authority on Karl Marx, had translated
_Das Kapital_ into English, thus giving impetus to Socialism. Lincoln
Steffens had published _The Shame of the Cities_, George Fitzpatrick had
produced _War, What For?_, a strange and wonderful arraignment of
capitalism, which sold thousands of copies.
The names of Cézanne, Matisse, and Picasso first became familiar sounds
on this side of the Atlantic at the time of the notable Armory
Exhibition, when outstanding examples of impressionist and cubist
painting were imported from Europe. But there was so much of
eccentricity—a leg on top of a head, a hat on a foot, the _Nude
Descending a Staircase_, all in the name of art—that you had to close
one eye to look at it. The Armory vibrated; it shook New York.
Although Bill had studied according to the old school, he could see the
point of view of the radical in art, and in politics as well. His
attitude towards the underdog was much like father’s. He had always been
a Socialist, although not active, and held his friend Eugene V. Debs in
high esteem.
A religion without a name was spreading over the country. The converts
were liberals, Socialists, anarchists, revolutionists of all shades.
They were as fixed in their faith in the coming revolution as ever any
Primitive Christian in the immediate establishment of the Kingdom of
God. Some could even predict the exact date of its advent.
At one end of the scale of rebels and scoffers were the “pink”
parliamentarian socialists and theorists at whom anarchists hurled the
insult “bourgeois.” At the other were the Industrial Workers of the
World, the “Wobblies,” advocating unionization of the whole industry
rather than the craft or trade. This was to be brought about, if need
be, by direct action.
Almost without knowing it you became a “comrade.” You could either
belong to a group that believed civilization was to be saved by the vote
and by protective legislation, or go further to the left and believe
with the anarchists in the integrity of the individual, and that it was
possible to develop human character to the point where laws and police
were unnecessary.
The mental stirring was such as to make a near Renaissance. Everybody
was writing on the nebulous “new liberties.” Practically always people
could be found to support leaders or magazines, although many of the
latter lived for hardly more than a single issue.
Upton Sinclair was utilizing his gift for vivid expression and righteous
wrath in trying to correct social abuses by the indirect but highly
effective method of story-telling. _The Jungle_ was a powerful exposé of
the capitalist meat industry responsible for the “embalmed beef” which
had poisoned American soldiers in ’98. Courageous as he was, he was yet
mistrusted by the Socialist Old Guard as being a Silk Hat Radical who
retained his bourgeois philosophy. Furthermore, he had been divorced,
and divorce at that time was something of a scandal. Though anarchists
minded such details not a whit, Socialists were imbued with all the
respectabilities; to most of these home-loving Germans, only the form of
government needed change.
In the United States the party was trying to separate itself from this
German influence, and the standard bearer of the American concept was
the magnetic and beloved Debs. Not himself an intellectual, he did not
need to be; he was intelligent. Risen as he had from the ranks of the
railroad workers, he knew their hardships from experience. Though I am
not sure he actually was tall, he gave the illusion of height because of
his thinness and stooping shoulders. He was all flame, like a fire
spirit. That was probably why the members of his coterie followed him so
gladly.
Our living room became a gathering place where liberals, anarchists,
Socialists, and I.W.W.’s could meet. These vehement individualists had
to have an audience, preferably a small, intimate one. They really came
to see Bill; I made the cocoa. I used to listen in, not at all sure my
opinions would be accepted by this very superior group. When I did
meekly venture something, I was quite likely to find myself on the
opposite side—right in a left crowd and vice versa.
Any evening you might find visitors from the Middle West being aroused
by Jack Reed, bullied by Bill Haywood, led softly towards anarchist
thought by Alexander Berkman. When throats grew dry and the flood of
oratory waned, someone went out for hamburger sandwiches, hot dogs, and
beer, paid for by all. The luxuriousness of the midnight repast depended
upon the collection of coins tossed into the middle of the table, which
consisted of about what everybody had in his pocket. These considerate
friends never imposed a burden either of extra work or extra expense. In
the kitchen everyone sliced, buttered, opened cans. As soon as all were
replenished, the conversation was resumed practically where it had left
off.
Both right-wingers and left-wingers who ordinarily objected to those in
between loved Jack Reed, the master reporter just out of Harvard. He
refused to conform to the rule and rote of either, though his natural
inclination appeared to be more in harmony with direct action.
Behind this most highly intellectual young man loomed an uncouth,
stumbling, one-eyed giant with an enormous head which he tended to hold
on one side. Big Bill Haywood looked like a bull about to plunge into an
arena. He seemed always glancing warily this way and that with his one
eye, head slightly turned as though to get the view of you. His great
voice boomed; his speech was crude and so were his manners; his
philosophy was that of the mining camps, where he had spent his life.
But I soon found out that for gentleness and sympathy he had not his
equal. He was blunt because he was simple and direct. Though he was not
tailor-made, he was custom-made.
Because Big Bill’s well-wishers saw so much that was fine in him, they
wanted to smooth off the jagged edges. When they tried to polish his
speeches, Jack Reed objected, saying, “Give him a free hand. He
expresses what you and I think much more dramatically than we can. Don’t
try to stop him! We should encourage him.”
One of Big Bill’s best friends, Jessie Ashley, was, without meaning to
be, a taming influence. These two were the oddest combination in the
world—old Bill with his one eye, stubby, roughened fingernails,
uncreased trousers, and shoddy clothes for which he refused to pay more
than the minimum; Jessie with Boston accent and horn-rimmed glasses, a
compromise between spectacles and lorgnette, from which dangled a black
ribbon, the ultimate word in eccentric decoration.
Jessie was one of the most conspicuous of the many men and women of long
pedigree who were revolting against family tradition. She was the
daughter of the President of the New York School of Law, and sister of
its dean. When her brother had organized the first women’s law class,
she had been his pupil and later had become the first woman lawyer in
New York City. Her peculiarly honest mind was tolerant towards others,
but uncompromising towards herself. It was said of her truly that she
was always in the forefront when it took courage to be there; always in
the background when there was credit to be gained. A Socialist in
practice as well as theory, she spent large portions of her income in
getting radicals out of jail, and her own legal experience she gave
freely in their behalf. Nevertheless, her appearances at strike meetings
were slightly uncomfortable; class tension rose up in waves.
Many others were trying to pull themselves out of the rut of tradition.
Alexander Berkman, the gentle anarchist, understood them all. He had
just been freed after fourteen years’ imprisonment for his attempt to
assassinate Henry Clay Frick during the Homestead Steel strike of 1892.
His emergence had stirred anarchism up again, and particularly its credo
of pure individualism—to stand on your own and be yourself, never to
have one person dictate to another, even parent to child.
Berkman’s appearance belied his reputation—blond, blue-eyed, slightly
built, with thinnish hair, and sensitive, mobile face and hands. He was
a thoughtful ascetic, believing sincerely that the quickest way to focus
attention on social outrages was to commit some dramatic act, however
violent or antipathetic it might be to his nature—and then suffer the
consequences. He was not at all embittered by his sojourn in jail, and
had a great sense of humor, coupled with his most extraordinary
understanding of the strange congeries of people who were about to be
melted down into his glowing crucible of truth.
Elizabeth Gurley Flynn had made the transition from Catholicism, Jack
Reed from being a “Harvard man,” Mabel Dodge from being a society
matron. They all had had to get over being class conscious, and acquire
instead the consciousness of the class struggle. Berkman made friends
with all, and when they were faced by problems apparently
insurmountable, he advised them on their spiritual journey, and
supported and backed them. For this reason he was beloved by all who
encountered his most gracious charm.
This was not the way of Emma Goldman, whose habit was to berate and lash
with the language of scorn. She was never satisfied until people had
arrived at her own doorstep and accepted the dogma she had woven for
herself. Short, stocky, even stout, a true Russian peasant type, her
figure indicated strength of body and strength of character, and this
impression was enhanced by her firm step and reliant walk. Though I
disliked both her ideas and her methods I admired her; she was really
like a spring house-cleaning to the sloppy thinking of the average
American. Our Government suffered in the estimation of the liberal world
when she and Berkman were expelled from the country.
Of all the strange places for these diverse personalities to meet, none
more strange could have been found than in Mabel Dodge’s salon, which
burst upon New York like a rocket. Mabel belonged to one of the old
families of Buffalo, but neither in thought nor action was she orthodox.
Only in the luxurious appointments of her home did she conform.
Among the sights and memories I shall never forget were her famous
soirées at Ninth Street and Fifth Avenue. A certain one typical of all
the others comes to mind; the whole gamut of liberalism had collected in
her spacious drawing-room before an open fire. Cross-legged on the
floor, in the best Bohemian tradition, were Wobblies with uncut hair,
unshaven faces, leaning against valuable draperies. Their clothes may
have been unkempt, but their eyes were ablaze with interest and
intelligence. Each knew his own side of the subject as well as any
scholar. You had to inform yourself to be in the liberal movement. Ideas
were respected, but you had to back them up with facts. Expressions of
mere emotion, unleashed from reason, could not be let loose to wander
about.
Listener more than talker, Mabel sat near the hearth, brown bangs
outlining a white face, simply gowned in velvet, beautifully arched foot
beating the air. For two hours I watched fascinatedly that silken ankle
never ceasing its violent agitation.
The topic of conversation turned out to be direct action. Big Bill was
the figure of the evening, but everybody was looking for an opportunity
to talk. Each believed he had a key to the gates of Heaven; each was
trying to convert the others. It could not exactly have been called a
debate, because a single person held the floor as long as he could.
Then, at one of his most effective periods, somebody else half rose and
interposed a “But—” The speaker hurried on; at his next telling sentence
came other “But—s,” until finally he was downed by the weight of
interruptions. In the end, conversions were nil; all were convinced
beforehand either for or against, and I never knew them to shift ground.
It is not hard to laugh about it now, but nobody could have been more
serious and determined than we were in those days.
Just before the argument reached the stage of fist fights, the big doors
were thrown open and the butler announced, “Madam, supper is served.”
Many of the boys had never heard those words, but one and all jumped up
with alacrity from the floor and discussion was, for the moment at
least, postponed. The wide, generous table in the dining room was
burdened with beef, cold turkey, hot ham—hearty meat for hungry souls.
On a side table were pitchers of lemonade, siphons, bottles of rye and
Scotch.
Mabel never stirred while the banquet raged, but continued to sit, her
foot still beating the air, and talked with the few who did not choose
to eat.
The class contrasts encountered in a gathering there were not unique.
They were to be found elsewhere, even in matrimony. When the wealthy J.
G. Phelps Stokes married Rose Pastor, the Russian-Jewish cigar maker,
both families felt equally outraged; he was practically sent to Coventry
by his former associates and the Jews regarded her as a renegade because
she wore a silver cross about her neck. William English Walling, the
last word in Newport, married Anna Strunsky, the last word in the Jewish
intelligentsia, and himself became a leading literary critic on the
radical side.
Harvard had been turning out liberals by the dozen, and all of them were
playing hob with accepted conventions in thought. One of these was
Walter Lippmann, others were Norman Hapgood and his brother, Hutchins.
“Hutch” was then working on the _Globe_, a paper which because of its
broad editorial policy was preferred by many radicals to the _Call_. He
stood by Bill Haywood and Emma Goldman, although he had much more to
lose economically and socially than the out-and-out reds.
The anarchists seldom initiated anything, because they did not have the
personnel or the equipment, but when something else was started which
appeared to have any good in it, they came right in. This they did with
the Ferrer School on Twelfth Street near Fourth Avenue, in the founding
of which Hutch, with the liberal journalist, Leonard Abbott, and the
author, Manuel Komroff, were moving spirits. The object was to provide a
form of education more progressive than that offered by the public
schools, and its name was intended to perpetuate the memory of the
recently martyred Spanish libertarian, Francisco Ferrer, who had
established modern free schools in Spain in which science and evolution
had been taught.
Lola Ridge, intense rebel from Australia, was the organizing secretary,
Robert Henri and George Bellows gave lessons in art, and a young man
named Will Durant was chosen to direct the younger children, combining
in his teaching Froebel, Montessori, and other new methods. Under him we
enrolled Stuart.
Will Durant was of French-Canadian ancestry. His mother had worked hard
to put him through a Jesuit seminary, but just before taking the vows he
had abandoned the priesthood. While he had been studying he had read
Krafft-Ebing and Havelock Ellis and was prepared to acquaint New York
with the facts of sex psychology. Sitting nonchalantly to deliver his
lectures, which evidenced scholarly background and research, he advanced
to his small but serious audience practically the first public
expression of this intimate subject.
The young instructor created rather a problem for the directors by
unexpectedly marrying a pupil, Ida Kaufman, commonly called Puck. I
remember one Saturday when she was romping with Stuart, and my laundress
said to her, “Why, you’re so young to be married. Do you like it?”
Puck replied, “Oh, I don’t care, but I’d much rather play marbles.”
Intellectuals were then flocking to enlist under the flag of
humanitarianism, and as soon as anybody evinced human sympathies he was
deemed a Socialist. My own personal feelings drew me towards the
individualist, anarchist philosophy, and I read Kropotkin, Bakunin, and
Fourier, but it seemed to me necessary to approach the ideal by way of
Socialism; as long as the earning of food, clothing, and shelter was on
a competitive basis, man could never develop any true independence.
Therefore, I joined the Socialist Party, Local Number Five, itself
something of a rebel in the ranks, which, against the wishes of the
central authority, had been responsible for bringing Bill Haywood East
after his release from prison. The members—Italian, Jewish, Russian,
German, Spanish, a pretty good mixture—used the rooms over a
neighborhood shop as a meeting place and there they were to be found
every evening reading and discussing politics.
Somebody had donated a sum of money to be spent to interest women in
Socialism. As proof that we were not necessarily like the masculine,
aggressive, bulldog, window-smashing suffragettes in England, I, an
American and a mother of children, was selected to recruit new members
among the clubs of working women. The Scandinavians, who had a
housemaids’ union, were the most satisfactory; they already leaned
towards liberalism.
Grant, who was as yet too young to go to school, wholeheartedly
disapproved of my political activities. Once when I was about to depart
for the evening he climbed up on my lap and said, “Are you going to a
meeting?”
“Yes.”
“A soshist meeting?”
“Yes.”
“Oh, I hate soshism!”
Everybody else was amused when the Sangers went to a Socialist meeting.
If I had an idea, I leaned over and whispered it to Bill, who waved his
hand and called for attention. “Margaret has something to say on that.
Have you heard Margaret?” Many men might have labeled my opinions silly,
and, indeed, I was not at all sure of them myself, but Bill thought if I
had one, it was worth hearing.
John Block and his wife, Anita, were ardent workers for the cause. She
was a grand person, a Barnard graduate and editor of the woman’s page of
the _Call_. She telephoned me one evening, “Will you help me out? We
have a lecture scheduled for tonight and our speaker is unable to come.
Won’t you take her place?”
“But I can’t speak. I’ve never made a speech in my life.”
“You’ll simply have to do it. There isn’t anybody I can get, and I’m
depending on you.”
“How many will be there?” I asked.
“Only about ten. You’ve nothing to be frightened of.”
But I was frightened—thoroughly so. I could not eat my supper. Shaking
and quaking I faced the little handful of women who had come after their
long working hours for enlightenment. Since I did not consider myself
qualified to speak on labor, I switched the subject to health, with
which I was more familiar. This, it appeared, was something new. They
were pleased and said to Anita, “Let’s have more health talks.” The
second time we met the audience had swelled to seventy-five and
arrangements were made to continue the lectures, if such they could be
called, which I prepared while my patients slept.
The young mothers in the group asked so many questions about their
intimate family life that I mentioned it to Anita. “Just the thing,” she
said. “Write up your answers and we’ll try them out in the _Call_.” The
result was the first composition I had ever done for publication, a
series under the general title, _What Every Mother Should Know_. I
attempted, as I had with the Hastings children, to introduce the
impersonality of nature in order to break through the rigid
consciousness of sex on the part of parents, who were inclined to be too
intensely personal about it.
Then Anita requested a second series to be called _What Every Girl
Should Know_. The motif was, “If the mother can impress the child with
the beauty and wonder and sacredness of the sex function, she has taught
it the first lesson.”
These articles ran along for three or four weeks until one Sunday
morning I turned to the _Call_ to see my precious little effort, and,
instead, encountered a newspaper box two columns wide in which was
printed in black letters,