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Chapter 5: “Can Our Civilization Maintain Itself?”: Immigration, Eugenics, and Birth Control
- University of Massachusetts Press
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• 113 • chapter 5 sS “Can Our Civilization Maintain Itself?” Immigration, Eugenics, and Birth Control The Great War was over. No need to tremble at the sight of the mail carrier, no need for food or coal conservation; you could read the papers without shuddering. For many, life returned to normal in no time. America could not wait to welcome back the men who had fought this war, just as the men could not wait to leave the Old World wasteland to return “to God’s own country where plumbing is popular and drinking water can be had anywhere for the asking.”1 For the men, “of course, the top question personally is—when can I go home?” wrote Walter Cannon in the midst of armistice celebrations in Paris on 13 November 1918, but it took a long time for sons, husbands, and fathers to return, even for high-ranking officers. His hopes to spend Christmas with his family and to return to his life as a laboratory hermit were shattered by an embargo on all departures, and on 14 December he complained, “I went into the depth of despair, and became the passive prey of uncertainty.” Cornelia, too, was disappointed, but then she kept too busy to fall into depressions. After all, the Radio boys were still in Cambridge, the Hostess House was still open. There was no room for sadness, only the tumultuous happiness of her busy daily schedule. And now she could fully enjoy her life, for gone were the fears that had lurked beneath the patriotic surface. While Dr. Cannon gave in to his depression during an all-male Christmas 114 • “c a n o u r c i v i l i z a t i o n m a i n t a i n i t s e l f ?” in France, his wife and children’s was one of pure joy, and they shared their holiday spirit with the Radio boys.2 New Year’s Eve was celebrated at the Whitings’s, and again the Radio boys were present. “I dressed as a Radio boy,” Cornelia wrote to Minnesota on 1 January 1919.“Fortunately a very fat boy lent me his clothes, so nothing split.” No apathy and despair where this woman ruled. But in the midst of celebrations she, too, was eager “for my ship to come sailing home!” as she wrote in her New Year’s letter. The long-awaited day came on 22 January. At the docks in Hoboken, in the midst of hundreds of women,“all sisters in sacrifice and joy,”3 stood Cornelia James Cannon, determined to embrace a new beginning. Was she also thinking of what she might be challenged to give up now that renewed demands to perform her conventional domestic roles were to be expected? Did she anticipate arguments, misunderstandings, assaults on her dearly loved mobility and freedom, as well as the hurt she might have to cause in self-defense? And whom did she expect? The “dear Walter” she had sent off to war? A hero? A man matured by his exposure to terrors she could not imagine? “The twenty months have fallen away like a garment, and I feel like a radiant bride,” she wrote to her mother that night. And like a bride she celebrated their reunion. “I have welcomed the beloved warrior to his native land. . . . Life seems all perfect again.” Continuity? Was that really what she wanted? And all perfect? Hardly, for even on that first day he was “tired way inside.” The following days were so hectic that the Cannons found no time to talk and feel honestly. “How quickly and happily the men shift off the whole business and become civilians once more!” Cornelia marveled in her family letter of 6 February, but she also admitted that the exchange of uniforms for civilian clothes was only one side of the coin. What the men carried in their souls could not be doffed so easily. She saw that Walter was determined to live up to everybody’s expectations—a loving husband, a playful father, a reliable colleague and conscientious teacher—but Cornelia realized how hard he had to work at it. He was performing rather than expressing his true feelings. “Walter is much changed, older and graver—his gayety gone, and much of his resilience.”She had read the Atlantic Monthly article on the transforming effect of war; now she had to connect it to their own lives.“His...