Gertrude Nelson Andrews

“ The time came when I realized that I must have been something of a proposition to the printing-plant’s young management. For I had stubbornly opposed the new efficiency system.
Because I felt tired at night, I had let my wife give up all other associations to keep me company. I had let myself lose interest in my old friends, and I had shunned making new ones. I selfishly clung to just my own immediate family. That meant heart-stagnation. The man is old who has let himself lose his heart-interest in people.
The man who loves most, lives most. Youth loves. ”

“ I finally threw the newspaper on the table, rose, dropped into the old rocker by the window, and let myself think. I have always been something of a philosopher; and I faced [Pg 16] my situation now with more of that spirit.
I, Harvey Allen, was sound and well, with fair intelligence, and a thorough knowledge of my work, gained by long experience. I had never been a drinking man, but had worked steadily, and had always been reliable. Yet, because I was sixty years of age, I was being thrown on the dump-heap. My father had lived to be eighty-four. In all probability I should live to be as old. ”

“ Instead of being a thing on the dump-heap, man may grow in power as he grows in years. His body is made by food, drink, air, and thoughts. Its cells are constantly rebuilding. By understanding his own power, he can direct this rebuilding to an increased Life-capacity.
His power to do so has been limited by his own ignorance. Once men said that [Pg 33] there could never be a steam-engine. Later they scoffed at the possibility of building a flying machine. In his discovery of new laws, man is learning that he has hindered his own growth through his lack of understanding. ”

“ But we, in our Youthland Colony, have learned that the Voice, all down through the years, has been trying to make man understand that he must follow the guiding star and find the tidings of great joy in the birth of his own creative self-the God Power [Pg 62] within his own being. When a man gains this interpretation of the Voice’s message he becomes an influence for growth and progress in the Great Life-Adventure-
HE FINDS YOUTH! ”

“ He still wore a summer’s stained and battered straw hat, and a dirty bandana handkerchief was tied about his neck. He was wet and pinched with the cold. He had turned up the collar of his old coat, and stood with one hand in his trousers pocket, as with the effort to coax a little warmth. For the minute, he had forgotten everything but his own discomfort. The hopeless misery of the man looked out of his watery eyes.
A dull sympathy of understanding stirred in me. The next instant I resented this feeling. I resented it because it put me in this old chap’s class. ”

“ As usual, on my Brooklyn subway trip, I read the want advertisements in the evening papers. An office over in a small New Jersey town was advertising for a printer! I read it two or three times. But if I had not taken that Central Park adventure trip, I don’t believe I should have answered this advertisement. I had never thought of going to New Jersey to look for a job. I felt all the self-centred New Yorker’s prejudices against New Jersey. But I did go. [Pg 38] I was up and on my way early the next morning.
And that was how I happened to meet Ben Hutchins and find my life’s big opportunity. ”

“ As creators, we grow. And growth is the law of life. Stagnation is decay and death. We must have new educational methods. We must have new ideals-a new heaven. And this new heaven will be a place filled with creators, instead of with stagnant resters.
Then I went on to suggest that society might organize Youthland colonies, instead of relegating each year so many thousands of men and women to the fate of dependence and stagnation. These colonies might be made centres of big [Pg 52] usefulness, of broad education and creative growth.
I outlined my scheme of a Youthland colony. ”

“ I gained the understanding that old age is a matter of the ignorance of Life. New laws of Nature are continually being discovered. In the last century science discovered electricity. This century will see the discovery of Life.
Man has both the mental and physical power to keep young, if he will use that power. ”

“ I worked in a downtown printing-plant. It was an old established concern, and I had worked there for years. I had been foreman in one of the departments until they put in a younger man. When the old proprietor died, and his son stepped into the father’s shoes, a good many changes were made. The son was a modern efficiency man.
It cut pretty deeply into my pride to be shifted around from one job to another-each a little inferior to the former and commanding less pay-and then being always finally misplaced by a younger man. ”

“ Ben Hutchins, out in California, read them in our own paper, which we sent him each week. Afterwards, his daughter told me that he showed them to the different guests in the hotel where they were stopping.
Then I wrote an article on the old-age problem. I headed it, “Why the Dump-Heap?” Among other things, I said that one of the biggest social wastes was the waste of the latter years of the lives of men and women. Instead of being a waste product at eighty, a man should be a Life masterpiece-still creative. ”

“ Cowardly old age, pessimistic, stagnant, and traveling in ruts, never finds a big life-opportunity.
[Pg 44]
V I had been at my new job two weeks. We had issued two editions of the weekly paper. I had done the work of editor, reporter, compositor, proof-reader, pressman, and mailing clerk. Every day I was growing more and more in love with my job. I whistled again like a boy, at my work-this, in spite of the fact that I was taking that long trip each night and morning to and from New York. It is not work-the kind that is made creative-but stagnation, which wearies. ”

“ I had the feeling of hurrying away from something that was clutching at me-as a man, using his last spurt of strength to swim for his own life, tries to keep away from the reach of another who is drowning. ”

“ Well, that is how our California Youthland Colony came into existence. It is another story, but I must tell you a few things about it. It is located in a beautiful spot-where “the ocean and the mountains meet.”
We are now a group of five hundred, all owning our own homes. Some of these homes are larger and more pretentious than others; for some of our colony members have good big incomes. Others are poor. But we are all inspired by the same ideals. The poorer ones are given the opportunity to pay for their homes on easy monthly installments. ”

“ By this time we should have learned that Life here, and always, is a thing creative. We are incidentally parents. We are creators always. For if God made us in His own image, then He made us all creators. ”

“ But we had never spent money very wildly. I sent a look around the apartment. Everything we had was old. No new thing had been bought in the home for years. The only real extravagance had been the piano. But that had seemed almost a necessity to my wife, who loved music, and tried to keep up a little in her playing. And I had paid my debts; had always taken pride in never owing any man a cent. In fact, [Pg 18] nothing had ever worried me more than indebtedness. But now-I cringed.
The boss had said that it was up to my two boys to take care of me. Why should it be? ”

“ I took off my overcoat and other coat, and hung them up with my hat. Then I found another printer’s dirty apron, and started in to work.
It may be hard to understand how a man, after having been employed for years in one of New York’s big printing-plants, should have finally found his [Pg 43] life’s opportunity in that little country junk-shop of a printing-office. ”

“ But we cling-theoretically, at least-to the savage belief that man possesses [Pg 51] no other creative power than the sex-function; and that, after they have passed the age of race-propagation, men and women are of no further social use. Savages, not knowing what else to do with their people of years, kill them. ”

“ Then, one night, I was going home after having traveled the rounds all day in Harlem. I was tired and pretty well discouraged. After having paid my next month’s rent and some other small bills, and taken money over to Brooklyn to help out with the expenses of George’s sickness, I had only about ten dollars left in the bank.
By this time I had come to understand that I must look for some kind of work aside from a printing-office. So [Pg 24] this day I had made the try for a job in several stores, and other places. But with no success. They had no jobs for men of my years. ”

“ It caught Ben Hutchins’s interest and made him take a liking to me from the start. I have learned that he is very quick and very decided in his likes and dislikes. In fact, he never does anything half-way. He is either stubbornly for a thing or against it. No argument can ever convince him either way. ”

“ There would be lectures, music, dancing, and classes in science, sociology, politics, psychology, literature, languages, and the arts. Everyone would be given the chance and encouraged to take up any kind of creative work in which he might feel himself capable of qualifying.
Well, Ben Hutchins read this article, and it struck instant fire in him. He didn’t even wait to write. Instead he telegraphed:-
“Youthland colony good scheme. California right place to start one. Am [Pg 53] writing my lawyer to sell printing-plant. You come out here.” ”

“ Both are inspired by the spirit of youth. They combine with the modern the best values brought out of their long experience.
Some of our members have been encouraged to write. A number are studying music. Mattie, my wife, is enjoying that privilege. One woman of seventy, who never before had the time or chance to study the piano, has displayed considerable musical ability. In a good-sized French class, no member is under sixty. And there are two art classes.
Ben Hutchins is the colony’s shrewd buyer. ”

“ It should be a place of individual homes, with certain coöperative community buildings-an auditorium and recreation centre, a hotel and laundry, and other things, to make living easier and cheaper. The members of the colony themselves would support all these institutions. For there would be different light industries for the ones who wished to work and earn their own living. ”

“ We have expert instruction in diet, exercise, rest, and the things which make for the best physical condition. It is my intention to incorporate some of these lessons in another book-the methods which we have worked out to our own advantage. We have almost no sickness. Our members are a vigorous, useful, busy lot of folks. ”

“ Then the superintendent gave a Jew shrug, shook his head, and dismissed me with a belittling smile.
“I vant a man dat could lif’ de garbage cans und big tings. You vas too old.”
The last drop of gall was added to the bitterness of my humiliation. I was too old to be the janitor of even a third-rate Harlem apartment house. As I stumbled back up the area-steps, I heard him hire the big negro for the job. Every atom of me tingled so with humiliation that I forgot to take a street car, but walked the rest of the long distance home. ”

“ They live out-of-door lives twelve months of the year. They are filled with all sorts of progressive interests. They think right thoughts. In connection with our physical work, we have dancing classes, also a hiking club that makes interesting trips. ”

“ That would mean twenty-four years on the dump-heap. Twenty-four years!-over a fourth of my existence. It was not good social business. Something was wrong. We don’t allow that waste with a horse or cow. ”