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Principles of Data Management

Facilitating information sharing 3rd


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BCS, THE CHARTERED INSTITUTE FOR IT

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for society. We use the power of our network to bring about positive,
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interests of individuals, engaged in that profession, for the benefit of
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Further information
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© 2022 BCS Learning and Development Ltd

The right of Keith Gordon to be identified as author of this Work has been asserted
by him in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and
Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or
private study, or criticism or review, as permitted by the Copyright Designs and
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All trade marks, registered names etc. acknowledged in this publication are the
property of their respective owners. BCS and the BCS logo are the registered
trade marks of the British Computer Society, charity number 292786 (BCS).

Published by BCS Learning & Development Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of


BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, 3 Newbridge Square, Swindon, SN1 1BY, UK.
www.bcs.org

Paperback ISBN: 978-1-78017-5911


PDF ISBN: 978-1-78017-5928
ePUB ISBN: 978-1-78017-5935

British Cataloguing in Publication Data.


A CIP catalogue record for this book is available at the British Library.

Disclaimer:
The views expressed in this book are of the author(s) and do not necessarily
reflect the views of the Institute or BCS Learning & Development Ltd except where
explicitly stated as such. Although every care has been taken by the authors and
BCS Learning & Development Ltd in the preparation of the publication, no
warranty is given by the authors or BCS Learning & Development Ltd as publisher
as to the accuracy or completeness of the information contained within it and
neither the authors nor BCS Learning & Development Ltd shall be responsible or
liable for any loss or damage whatsoever arising by virtue of such information or
any instructions or advice contained within this publication or by any of the
aforementioned.

Website links up to date at the time of publication.

Publisher’s acknowledgements
Reviewers: Ian Rush and Ian Wallis
Publisher: Ian Borthwick
Commissioning editor: Rebecca Youé
Production manager: Florence Leroy
Project manager: Hazel Bird
Copy-editor: Hazel Bird
Proofreader: Barbara Eastman
Indexer: Sally Roots
Cover design: Alex Wright
Cover image: iStock © Bill_Dally
Typeset by Lapiz Digital Services, Chennai, India.
There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to
conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the
introduction of a new order of things.
Niccolò Machiavelli (1469–1527)

The beginning of wisdom is the definition of terms.


Socrates (470–399 BC)

Data analysis is a very useful tool for efficient database design. It is


much less useful as a means of identifying information requirements
(especially where these are ‘fuzzy’ and unstructured), or in allowing
different viewpoints to be taken into consideration. Too often based
on an analysis of current situations, data analysis – in the extreme
case – is a great way of encapsulating organisational ineffectiveness
in the resultant database!
Professor Robert Galliers (1947–)
CONTENTS

List of figures
About the author
Foreword to the first edition
Abbreviations
Glossary
Preface
Introduction

PART 1: PRELIMINARIES

1. DATA AND THE ENTERPRISE


Information is a key business resource
The relationship between information and data
The data landscape
The importance of the quality of data
The common problems with data
An enterprise-wide view of data
Managing data is a business issue
Summary

2. DATABASES AND THEIR DEVELOPMENT


The database architecture of an information system
Types of database
An overview of the database development process
Conceptual data modelling (from a project-level
perspective)
Relational data analysis
The roles of a data model
Physical database design
Summary

3. WHAT IS DATA MANAGEMENT?


The problems encountered without data management
Data management responsibilities
Data management activities
Roles within data management
The benefits of data management
The relationship between data management and enterprise
architecture
Summary

PART 2: DATA ADMINISTRATION

4. CORPORATE DATA MODELLING


Why develop a corporate data model?
The nature of a corporate data model
How to develop a corporate data model
Corporate data model principles
Summary

5. DATA DEFINITION AND NAMING


The elements of a data definition
Data naming conventions
Summary

6. METADATA
What is metadata?
Metadata for data management
Metadata for content management
Metadata for describing data values
Summary

7. DATA QUALITY
What is data quality?
Issues associated with poor data quality
The causes of poor data quality
The dimensions of data quality
Metadata quality
Data model quality
Approaches to improving data quality
Improving data quality is a business issue
Summary

8. DATA ACCESSIBILITY
Data security
Data integrity
Data recovery
Summary

9. MASTER DATA MANAGEMENT


What is master data?
How do problems with master data occur?
How do we manage master data?
Summary
PART 3: DATABASE AND REPOSITORY ADMINISTRATION

10. DATABASE ADMINISTRATION


Database administration responsibilities
Performance monitoring and tuning
Summary

11. REPOSITORY ADMINISTRATION


Repositories, data dictionaries, encyclopaedias, catalogs
and directories
Repository features
The repository as a centralised source of information
Metadata models
Summary

PART 4: THE DATA MANAGEMENT ENVIRONMENT

12. THE USE OF PACKAGED APPLICATION SOFTWARE


What are application software packages?
The impact on data management
Summary

13. DISTRIBUTED DATA AND DATABASES


The rationale for distributing data
The perfect distributed database system?
Top-down fragmentation and partitioning
Bottom-up integration
The management of replication
Summary

14. BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE


An introduction to data warehousing
The multidimensional model of data
Standard reporting tools
Online analytical processing
Data mining
A relational schema for a data warehouse
Summary

15. OBJECT ORIENTATION


What is object orientation?
The fundamental concepts of object orientation
Object-oriented databases
Object-relational databases
Summary

16. MULTIMEDIA
What is multimedia?
Storing multimedia outside a database
Storing multimedia inside a database
Storing multimedia using special packages
Summary

17. INTEGRATING DATA AND WEB TECHNOLOGY


The World Wide Web
XML and databases
Other ways to link databases into web technology
Cloud computing
The Semantic Web
Summary

18. LINKED DATA


What is linked data?
Uniform Resource Identifiers
The HyperText Transfer Protocol
Resource Description Framework
Summary

19. CONCEPT SYSTEMS


Introducing concepts and concept systems
The generic structure of a concept system
The classification of concept systems
What makes a good concept system?
Summary

20. BIG DATA AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE


The data explosion
What is Big Data?
How is Big Data stored?
How is Big Data used?
The data lake concept
What is artificial intelligence?
Artificial intelligence and data
Big Data and artificial intelligence ethics
Summary

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A COMPARISON OF DATA MODELLING NOTATIONS

APPENDIX B GENERIC DATA MODELS

APPENDIX C HTML AND XML

APPENDIX D TECHNIQUES AND SKILLS FOR DATA


MANAGEMENT
APPENDIX E DATA STRATEGY

APPENDIX F INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS FOR DATA


MANAGEMENT

APPENDIX G THE BCS DATA MANAGEMENT ESSENTIALS


SYLLABUS
Further reading
Index
LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1.1 The relationship between data and information


Figure 1.2 The data landscape
Figure 1.3 Example of data arranged in tables and columns
Figure 2.1 A model of a database system
Figure 2.2 The three-level schema architecture
Figure 2.3 The database chronology
Figure 2.4 Hierarchical database schema
Figure 2.5 Network database schema
Figure 2.6 A simplified view of the database development
process
Figure 2.7 A conceptual data model diagram
Figure 2.8 A portion of an SQL create script
Figure 2.9 The EMPLOYEE entity type
Figure 2.10 The attributes of the EMPLOYEE entity type
Figure 2.11 Addition of the PROPERTY entity type
Figure 2.12 Addition of the RESIDENT AT relationship
Figure 2.13 Splitting of the EMPLOYEE entity type
Figure 2.14 Addition of the QUALIFICATION and PERSON
QUALIFICATION entity types
Figure 2.15 Addition of the GRADE and EMPLOYEE GRADE entity
types
Figure 2.16 Addition of the DEPARTMENT and ASSIGNMENT entity
types
Figure 2.17 Addition of the one-to-one managed by relationship
Figure 2.18 Addition of the many-to-many managed by
relationship
Figure 2.19 The resolution of the many-to-many managed by
relationship
Figure 2.20 Addition of entity subtypes
Figure 2.21 Addition of an exclusive arc
Figure 2.22 Addition of the person next of kin entity type
Figure 2.23 A relation shown as a table
Figure 2.24 An example of a human resources paper record
Figure 2.25 The data items identified from the human resources
paper record
Figure 2.26 The first normal form relations
Figure 2.27 The second normal form relations
Figure 2.28 The third normal form relations
Figure 2.29 The employee interview relation
Figure 2.30 The equivalent Boyce–Codd normal form relations
Figure 3.1 Data management activities
Figure 3.2 Data management deliverables
Figure 3.3 The roles within data management
Figure 4.1 The supply-chain model
Figure 4.2 The improved supply-chain model
Figure 4.3 More than one type of support?
Figure 4.4 The combined support model
Figure 4.5 The generic ‘unit’ model
Figure 5.1 A data definition with validation criteria and valid
operations
Figure 5.2 A data definition with valid values
Figure 5.3 An entity type definition
Figure 7.1 The three perspectives on data quality (from ISO
8000)
Figure 7.2 The five dimensions of data model quality
Figure 7.3 Total Quality data Management methodology
Figure 7.4 The Ten Steps process
Figure 7.5 The ISO 8000-61 process model © ISO
Figure 8.1 SQL table privilege statements
Figure 8.2 An SQL function privilege statement
Figure 8.3 An SQL database object privilege statement
Figure 8.4 A view statement and an associated table privilege
statement
Figure 8.5 A user-specific view statement and an associated
table privilege statement
Figure 9.1 The six data layers
Figure 9.2 A conceptual model with different data categories
Figure 9.3 The three master data layers
Figure 9.4 The relationship between business functions and
master data
Figure 9.5 The role of the MDM hub
Figure 11.1 The role of directories or catalogs
Figure 11.2 The relationship between a CASE tool and its
encyclopaedia or data dictionary
Figure 11.3 The architecture of a repository
Figure 11.4 The scope of a repository
Figure 11.5 A repository as a centralised source of information
Figure 11.6 A metadata model describing conceptual data model
concepts
Figure 11.7 A metadata model describing physical SQL database
concepts
Figure 13.1 An example of vertical fragmentation
Figure 13.2 An example of hybrid fragmentation
Figure 14.1 A typical data warehouse architecture
Figure 14.2 A multidimensional data model
Figure 14.3 A typical relational schema for a data warehouse
Figure 14.4 A snowflake schema
Figure 14.5 A galaxy schema
Figure 15.1 A partial conceptual data model
Figure 15.2 The ODL schema definitions for the partial
conceptual data model
Figure 15.3 Structured-type declarations
Figure 15.4 Table declarations using structured types and
collections
Figure 15.5 Revised partial conceptual data model with entity
subtypes
Figure 15.6 Creating structured types
Figure 15.7 Creating tables based on the structured types
Figure 17.1 The two-tier architecture
Figure 17.2 The three-tier architecture
Figure 18.1 A URI that is also a URL
Figure 18.2 A URI that is also a URN
Figure 18.3 An RDF graph describing the origin of Scotch whisky
Figure 18.4 An RDF graph describing Eric Miller
Figure 18.5 The RDF triples describing Eric Miller
Figure 19.1 A metamodel describing concept systems
Figure 20.1 Examples of key–value pairs in a key–value store
Figure 20.2 Example of a JSON document
Figure 20.3 Example of documents in a document store
Figure 20.4 A conceptual view of part of an extensible record
store
Figure 20.5 A conceptual view of a graph database
Figure 20.6 A comparison of the performance of different types of
database
Figure 20.7 A comparison of the suitability of different types of
NoSQL database
Figure 20.8 A comparison of the processing streams for different
Big Data use cases
Figure 20.9 A comparison of data warehouses and data lakes
Figure A.1 A data model in Ellis–Barker notation
Figure A.2 Ellis–Barker data model with attribute annotation and
unique identifiers
Figure A.3 A data model in Chen notation
Figure A.4 A data model in Information Engineering notation
Figure A.5 A data model in IDEF1X notation
Figure A.6 A UML class diagram
Figure A.7 Comparison of the relationship notations
Figure A.8 Comparison of the overall data model notations
Figure B.1 The generic-to-specific continuum
Figure B.2 The cost balance of flexible design
Figure C.1 An example of an HTML document
Figure C.2 The HTML document rendered using Google
Chrome
Figure C.3 An example of an XML document
Figure C.4 The tree structure of the XML document
Figure C.5 Specimen data for the XML representation examples
Figure C.6 The employee table represented as a valid XML
document
Figure C.7 The employee table represented as XML without a
root element
Figure C.8 An example SQL query to create an XML document
Figure C.9 An edge table created by shredding an XML
document
Figure C.10 A query on an XML document
Figure C.11 The result of the query on an XML document
Figure D.1 The data administration skill set
Figure E.1 Overview of the data strategy
ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Keith Gordon was a professional soldier for 38 years, joining the


Army straight from school at 16 and retiring on his 55th birthday.
During his service he had a number of technical, educational and
managerial appointments and gained a Higher National Certificate in
Electrical, Electronic and Telecommunications Engineering; a
Certificate in Education from the Institute of Education of the
University of London; a Bachelor of Arts from the Open University;
and a Master of Science from Cranfield Institute of Technology. From
1992 until his retirement in 1998, he was first a member of and then
head of the Army’s data management team.

After retiring from the Army, he spent just over 20 years as an


independent consultant and lecturer specialising in data
management and business analysis. As well as developing and
teaching commercial courses, he was a tutor for the Open University
for several years.

He is a Chartered Member of BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT,


and a Fellow of the Institution for Engineering and Technology.
He holds the Diploma in Business Systems Development
Specialising in Data Management from BCS – formerly the
Information Systems Examination Board (ISEB) – and he sat on their
Business Systems Development Examination and Audit and
Accreditation Panels for many years.

He represents the UK within the international standards development


community by being nominated by the British Standards Institution to
ISO/IEC JTC1 SC32 WG2 (Information Technology – Data
Management and Interchange – Metadata).

He was the secretary of the BCS Data Management Specialist


Group between 2006 and 2012 and, as a founder member, was a
committee member of the UK chapter of DAMA International, the
worldwide association of data management professionals, between
2003 and 2012.

Apart from the standards development work, he is now retired.


FOREWORD TO THE FIRST
EDITION

The author of this book is a soldier through and through – but he


also has a comprehensive understanding of the principles of data
management and is a highly skilled professional educator. This
rather unusual blend of experience makes this book very special.

Data management can be seen as a chore best left to people with no


imagination but Keith Gordon taught me that it can be a matter of life
and death.

We all know that any collective enterprise must have records that are
both reasonably accurate and readily accessible. In a commercial
operation, failures in data management can lead to bankruptcy. In a
public service it can put the lives of thousands of people at risk and
waste public money on a grand scale. For a soldier in the heat of
battle, any weakness in the availability, quality or timeliness of
information can lead to a poor decision that may result in disaster.

So what has this to do with the ‘principles of data management’? It


serves as a reminder that a computer application is only as good as
the data on which it depends.

It is common for the development of computer systems to start from


the desired facilities and work backwards to identify the objects
involved and so to the data by which these objects are described.
One bad result of this approach is that the data resource gets
skewed by the design of specific facilities that it is required to
support.

When the business decides that these facilities have to be changed,


the data resource must be modified. Does this matter? Some people
would say ‘Oh, it’s easy enough to add another column to a table –
no problem.’ But these are the same people that get bogged down in
the soul-destroying tasks of data fill and the mapping of one
database onto another.

There is another way. We don’t have to treat data design as a minor


detail understood only by the programmers of a single system. An
enterprise can choose to treat its data as a vital corporate asset and
take appropriate steps to ensure that it is fit for purpose. To do this it
must draw on the body of practical wisdom that has been built up by
those large organisations that have already taken this message to
heart. The British Army is one such organisation and it was Keith
Gordon that made this happen.

The big issue here is how to ensure that the records on which an
enterprise depends remain valid and useful beyond the life of
individual systems and facilities. This requires good design resting
on sound principles validated through extensive practical experience.
We live in a changing world where new demands for information are
arising all the time. Whether this is due to new technology, new
social problems or the pressures of competition, these new demands
cannot be met by creating yet more stove-pipe systems.

The goal we should aim at is for all data to be captured in digital form
once only, as close as possible to the time and place of the
observations, decisions and results that it is required to reflect. Once
captured it should then be stored and distributed in such a manner
that it can be made readily available to any person or system with a
legitimate ‘need to know’ while remaining safe from loss, damage or
theft.

The tricks of the trade through which the best practitioners contrive
to bring this about are well documented in this book. I commend it to
all people who seek to understand what is involved as well as those
who aspire to develop the necessary skills.

Harry Ellis FBCS CITP


Independent consultant and member of W3C
Little Twitchen
Devon, UK
ABBREVIATIONS

1NF First normal form


2NF Second normal form
3NF Third normal form
ACID Atomicity, consistency, isolation, durability
AgMES Agricultural Metadata Element Set
AI Artificial intelligence
Ajax Asynchronous JavaScript and XML
BCNF Boyce–Codd normal form
BMP Windows Bitmap Format
CAP Consistency, availability, partition tolerance
CASE Computer-aided software engineering
CGI Common Gateway Interface
CODASYL Conference on Data Systems Languages
DBA Database administrator
DBMS Database management system
DCL Data control language
DDL Data definition language
DML Data manipulation language
DoDAF Department of Defense Architecture Framework
DTD Document type definition
EPISTLE European Process Industry STEP Technical Liaison
Executive
ERP Enterprise resource planning
ETL Extraction, translation and loading
FOAF Friend of a friend
GIF Graphics Interchange Format
GQL Graph query language
HTML HyperText Markup Language
HTTP HyperText Transfer Protocol
IDEF ICAM Definition Languages
IDMS Integrated Database Management System
IEC International Electrotechnical Commission
IMS Information Management System
IS Information system
ISBN International standard book number
ISO International Organization for Standardization
IT Information technology
JDBC Java Database Connectivity
JPEG Joint Photographic Experts Group File Interchange
Format
JSON JavaScript Object Notation
KDD Knowledge discovery in databases
MDM Master data management
N3 Notation-3
Another random document with
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A pretty good thing, and I suppose there’s nursemaids and
governesses for all the children, too, hey?

Maxwell
Why, as a matter of fact there are—but not exactly in the way
you mean. You see, they run a sort of a boarding school, too, the
people that run this model tenement do, and they take care of all the
children there—keep ’em night and day, feed ’em and dress ’em and
teach ’em trades and all that sort of thing. They let them come to see
you on Sunday, but you’re relieved of all responsibility and your wife
of all the trouble.

Ryan
I see. But what’s to become of my job when I’m going off to this
here model tenement to sleep nights? Don’t you know that a janitor
has to sleep in the building he’s taking care of?

Maxwell
Well, you’re not in love with your job, are you? You’d be willing to
do some other work where there was a chance of advancement and
better pay, wouldn’t you?

Ryan
Sure I would. Where am I going to get it?

Maxwell
Why, as to that, I guess Mr. Morris or I could get you a job
somewhere. You’re a big husky fellow and pretty steady, I know. I
could get you a job in the shipping department of a factory I am
interested in, if you wanted it.

Ryan
What would the hours be?

Maxwell (laughing)
Why, you’re going pretty fast, Ryan. I don’t know just what the
hours would be yet, but I suppose they’d be from half past eight to
six or something like that. That’s easier than your hours now, isn’t it?

Ryan
Much easier. Now, what has all this got to do with my wife having
too many children?

Maxwell
Why, these people think that Mrs. Ryan has had too many
children. Some of these people are doctors, and they say it’s bad for
a woman’s health to have so many children.

Ryan
I see. Well, what would you like to have me do about it?

Maxwell
About the model tenement?

Ryan
No, about my wife having any more children.

Maxwell
Well, you know—you see I’m not—what they think is— Oh,
damn it, I don’t know about this part of the thing, Ryan. It’s out of my
line. I’m not a philanthropist. I’m just talking for these people
because they know I know you. About that question you’ll have to
talk to Mrs. Dannenberg or Mr. Morris.

Ryan
Mr. Morris—he’s the little guy that was standing on a chair when
I came in to-night, ain’t he?

Maxwell
Yes.
Ryan
Is he a doctor?

Maxwell
No, I don’t think he is.

Ryan
He came into my place the other day selling some sort of a little
doctor book.

Maxwell
I know; he does that because he’s a philanthropist.

Ryan
Do people make a living by being philanthropists?

Maxwell
No—well, as a matter of fact, many people do make a pretty fat
living out of it, but Mr. Morris doesn’t. He’s a sculptor—a man that
makes statues, you know.

Ryan
Oh, I know what a sculptor is, all right. What statues did Mr.
Morris make?

Maxwell
Why, he made that statue over in the corner, for one thing.
(Ryan goes over and examines the purple statue.)

Ryan
Do you like this statue, Mr. Johnson?

Maxwell (laughing)
I’m not a judge of such things, Ryan. But people who know about
art say that it’s very good indeed.

Ryan
Is it a good likeness?

Maxwell
It’s not supposed to be a portrait; it’s a sort of a fancy statue. It
represents the “Emancipation of Woman”—woman freed, you know.

Ryan
Freed from what?

Maxwell
Why, from overwork, and excessive child-bearing and all that
sort of thing, you know.

Ryan
Well, that lady’s freed from child-bearing, all right. She’s perfectly
safe on that score. (He goes back to his chair and pours out another
drink.) But now let’s get back to your friends’ proposition. I’m to get a
day job and come home nights—is that right?

Maxwell
That’s right.

Ryan
The children are taken off my wife’s hands, and she doesn’t have
to do any more cooking or washing or anything, hey?

Maxwell
That’s it, Ryan.

Ryan
And the place we’d live would be pretty much like this apartment,
would it?

Maxwell
Just as comfortable, at any rate.

Ryan
My wife would have no work to do; I’d work in the daytime and
come home nights—there’d be no kids to take care of—it would be
pretty much like the life that you and your wife have, wouldn’t it, Mr.
Johnson?

Maxwell
Ah—why, yes, Ryan, pretty much the same. What do you think of
the proposition?

Ryan
Well, I’ll tell you. Of course I wouldn’t like to have the children go
away—though they are a lot of trouble—but I suppose they’d be
better taken care of than we could do, so, if that was all there was to
it, I’d say go ahead. And it’d be all right for me, too, if I was a
bachelor. But it’s on account of my wife that I feel I’ve got to say,
“Excuse me!”

Maxwell
Why, you don’t begrudge your wife a little rest, do you, Ryan?

Ryan
Would I begrudge the old woman a little rest? Yes, by God, I
would, if a little rest meant having nothing to do all day except sit
around and talk to her friends and run around town. It’s just on that
account that I say nix to your whole proposition. Now you think I’m a
slave driver, I suppose. Well, I ain’t, Mr. Johnson, but I’ve lived with a
woman thirteen years, and what I’m telling you I didn’t get out of no
books—it’s facts!
Listen, Mr. Johnson. What you want us to do is to live just the
sort of life that you and your wife live—no children to take care of, no
washing nor cooking nor nothing. Well, what I say is, excuse me!
That may be all right for you and your wife—she don’t need no
housework nor children nor nothing to keep her busy. Her time is full
of all sorts of useful things—I know that. (Maxwell stirs uneasily and
looks at the floor.) But with Annie, my wife, it’s a different proposition
altogether. She’s one of them women—and there’s a lot more of
them than you think—that can’t stand living in a nice regular
apartment with nothing to do. I know because we tried it when we
was first married. It’s like what the old fellow said: “Satan finds some
mischief still for idle hands to do”!

Maxwell
True enough! And—

Ryan
Listen, Mr. Johnson. When we was first married, Annie was one
of these here idle hands they tell of. She was an idle hand for three
years, and Satan, as the old fellow said, certainly found some
mischief for her to do. Not anything real bad—there’s no real harm in
Annie—but it was mischief all right. For the first three years we was
living in a nice apartment in Brooklyn. I wasn’t a janitor, then; I was
driving a truck. I was out all day and I got home every night at six or
seven o’clock. All Annie has to do is to get my breakfast and supper
and keep the place clean. Does she do it? Sure she does, for the
first four or five weeks! Then she gets to making friends with other
women in the building and going out to matinees and vaudeville and
all that sort of thing. That’s all right—I can afford it—I don’t care if
she has a good time; but then what does she do? I give her two
dollars in the morning to go out and buy a good supper for me when
I come home. I come home and she ain’t in yet, and the lady in the
next flat gives me the groceries that she’s sent home. And what is
they? A little chipped beef and a box of Saratoga chips and some
baker’s bread. About fifty-cent’s worth. When she gets home I ask
her where she’s been. Why, Mrs. Eindorfer has took her to a
spiritualist meeting, and she’s spent the rest of that money to look
into a glass ball or have her fortune told or some such foolishness.
Now this goes on for nearly three years. It ain’t all spiritualists’
meetings; it’s all sorts of things. She makes all sorts of friends,
women and men, too; I had to beat a couple of ’em up. The flat
wasn’t kept up; I run into debt; my meals wasn’t cooked right or on
time, and Annie was half sick all the time just from running around
entertaining herself. I ain’t blaming her. She wasn’t to blame. And
what was to blame? The apartment house was to blame. When
Peter was born, after we’d been married three years, and I gave up
trucking and moved out of that apartment house and got a job as
janitor, everything was all right. And everything’s been all right ever
since.

Maxwell (thoughtfully)
And the apartment house was to blame?

Ryan
Believe me, Mr. Johnson, the only part of an apartment house to
live in is the basement, where you can have a regular home. I been
a janitor for ten years, and I seen these apartment houses do queer
things to families. They don’t seem to have no children when they
live in apartment houses, that’s one thing. And there ain’t no coal to
bring up and the washing goes out, and there ain’t nothing for them
to do but just make fools of themselves. And sometimes there’s a
good many divorces been caused by these here apartment houses.
And there’d be a good many more divorces if a lot of husbands knew
what went on when they was downtown at business.
Understand me, Mr. Johnson. I don’t mean you and your wife at
all. You ain’t that sort of people, but what I do say is for my wife, and
for a lot of women with more education and more money than she’s
got, the only sort of life is doing housework and taking care of
children all day long. So Annie and me will stay down in the
basement, much obliged to you, unless we go out of New York to live
in a little house in the country sometime. And Annie’ll have just as
much work to do there. She’s one of them women that wasn’t meant
to be idle. And now I guess I’ll go downstairs.
(He rises and goes toward the door. Maxwell sits silent for a
moment and then rises a little unsteadily. He holds out his hand to
Ryan for a second and then drops it and starts.)

Maxwell
Ryan, I—er—why, I guess you’re right, after all. I’ll tell my friends
what you said.

Ryan
All right. No hard feelings, I hope.

Maxwell
Not at all; that’s all right. Good night, Ryan.

Ryan
Good night, Mr. Johnson.
(He goes out.)

Maxwell
There’s a man that’s master in his own home, at any rate. (He
lights a cigar and walks around the room with his hands in his
trousers pockets, coming to a halt in front of the purple statue. He
looks at it reflectively.) Satan finds some mischief still—(A pause)—
for idle hands to do. For idle hands to do. For idle hands to do. For
idle hands—
(The doorbell is rung violently. Maxwell starts and runs out into
the hall. He returns with Helen, who is very much out of breath. As
she runs into the room the combs drop from her hair, which falls over
her face and shoulders. She throws herself on the chaise-longue.
Maxwell sits beside her and tries to push her hair back from her
face.)
Nellie! What’s the matter?
(Helen sobs without answering.)

Helen
It’s those nasty Martins and that nasty policeman and that nasty
Lionel Morris.
(The bell rings again. Maxwell goes to the door and admits
Lionel.)

Lionel
Oh, I’m awfully glad you got back all right, Miss White. I jumped
into a taxi as soon as that brute of a policeman came, and then I met
all the rest of the crowd at the studio and everybody said, “Where’s
Miss White?” So I came right up here to find out if you’d got home.

Maxwell
For God’s sake, will somebody tell me what’s happened?

Lionel (sitting on the pianola bench)


Why, you see—

Helen
Be still. You see, Max, we were all at the Mortons’ studio, and
Adrian Wolfe made a speech about those nasty striking miners in
California or wherever it is that everybody is wearing mourning for
and parading and all that and this—and Mr. Morris said: “Let’s walk
up to Union Square and hold an open air meeting to protest.” So we
went up there and I made a speech and there was a crowd and I
saw a policeman there, but I thought it would be all right, and then
Mr. Morris made a speech and he said something about trampling on
a bloodstained flag, and the policeman told him to stop, and he
called the policeman a myrmidon, and some more policemen came
and broke up the meeting, and he ran away and wouldn’t help me;
and I ran down into the subway, and I don’t see how he dares show
his face in here!
Maxwell
I’ll talk to him presently, but quiet down a little. You’d better go in
your room and fix up your hair.
(Helen rises to go out. She stops in the doorway and turns to
Maxwell.)

Helen
I won’t go to that nasty Amaranth this summer, Maxwell.

Maxwell
No, you won’t go to Amaranth.

Helen
Then will you get an automobile?

Maxwell
No, I won’t get an automobile.

Helen
Then what—

Maxwell
I am going to take that two thousand dollars and buy, with the
assistance of the building and loan association, a small house in a
city called Joplin, in the State of Missouri. It will not be a large house,
but I think that you will not find the time hanging heavy on your
hands. My brother has a wholesale grocery there, and I dare say he
will take me into the business, especially as I have a little money to
invest. And I’ll come home to luncheon every day. Missouri is a fertile
State. My brother has six children.

Lionel
But, Miss White—Mr. Johnson!
(Helen goes down the hall to her room. Maxwell walks up to
Lionel.)

Maxwell
My wife’s name is not Miss White but Mrs. Johnson—Mrs.
Maxwell Johnson, of Joplin, Missouri. Get that? Do you know what
keeps me from dropping you down the elevator shaft?

Lionel
What—what do you mean?

Maxwell
It’s the janitor. Yes, Ryan, the fellow down in the basement with
nine children that you and Mrs. What’s-her-name wanted to
segregate. He told me all about you to-night. You’re nothing but a by-
product! The apartment house is the real devil in this pretty little play
—the apartment house is responsible for Feminism and Socialism
and Anarchism and Eugenics and pups like you. You’re just a sort of
bad substitute for the movies—that’s all you are. The apartment
house breeds the whole bunch of you—the apartment house and its
artificial, lazy, good-for-nothing life.
(Lionel starts toward the door hurriedly, but stops as if shot
when the telephone bell rings close to his ear. He comes back into
the room and Maxwell goes to the telephone.)

Maxwell
Hello!... What’s that?... Yes, this is Mr. Johnson.... No, I don’t
think so. Hold the wire and I’ll see. (With his hand over the
transmitter he looks into the room.) Nellie!

Helen (coming into the living room with her hair


in a long braid, wearing a blue tea gown)
Yes, Max?

Maxwell
What is your name?

Helen
Why, Helen, of course, stupid.

Maxwell
Helen what?

Helen
Helen Johnson.

Maxwell
Not Miss Helen White?

Helen
No! No! No!

Maxwell (smiling)
Well, that’s all right, then. There’s a cop down-stairs with a
warrant for the arrest of a Miss Helen White and a Mr. Lionel Morris,
charged with making incendiary speeches in Union Square. They
think that Morris’s taxicab stopped at this building, and the policeman
is going through all the apartments. He’ll be here in a minute. (In the
receiver.) All right, Sam, it’s all right. Thanks for tipping me off.
(Maxwell reënters the room and sits on the pianola bench. Helen
reclines, with some dignity, on the chaise-longue. Lionel crouches
behind the purple statue.)

Maxwell (meditatively)
Satan finds some mischief still—

Helen
What are you saying, Max?

Maxwell
Oh, I was just thinking of the janitor. I had quite a talk with him
after you left.
(The doorbell rings, and Maxwell admits a large policeman.)

Policeman
Excuse me, sir; it’s just a matter of form. I’m looking for a couple
of them Anarchist-Suffrage-I. W. W. bugs. It’s just a matter of form.
The man’s name is Lionel Morris and the woman’s name is Helen
White. Are you Lionel Morris?

Maxwell
No; my name is Maxwell Johnson. The janitor knows me, and so
do a lot of people in the building.

Policeman
Thank you, sir. It’s just a matter of form. Now, madam—it’s just a
matter of form—are you Helen White?

Helen
No, I am not Helen White. I am Mrs. Maxwell Johnson.

Policeman
Thank you, madam, thank you; it’s just a matter of form. You see
these parties is incendiaries; they called me a mermaiden. Now, just
two more questions—it’s just a matter of form: Is Miss Helen White
here?

Helen
No, Helen White is not here.

Maxwell
And I’m glad she isn’t here, officer.

Policeman
You may well be that, sir; you may well be that. Now, is Lionel
Morris here?
(There is a pause, during which the purple statue shakes
slightly.)

Maxwell
Well, what do you think about it, officer? Take a look around the
place. Want to look in the dumb waiter or down the kitchen sink?

Policeman
Oh, I know he’s not here, Mr. Johnson, and I’m sorry to have
troubled you. Much obliged to you. Good night, sir.

Maxwell
Have a drink before you go?

Policeman
Well, I hadn’t ought to, but I guess I will, thanks.
(Helen pours the whiskey and Maxwell and the policeman lift
their glasses.)

Policeman
Well, here’s how, sir.

Maxwell
Here’s Joplin!

Helen
Oh, I’ll drink that.
(She takes a sip from Maxwell’s glass.)

Policeman
What’s that, something new?
Maxwell
No, it’s old as Adam and Eve.

Policeman
Well, it’s a new one on me. Thank you, sir. Good night.

Maxwell
Good night. (The policeman goes out. After the door slams shut,
Lionel stands up, but remains behind the purple statue.) Hadn’t you
better go to some other apartment house? The cop’s gone down the
elevator. He’ll be gone by the time you get downstairs. (Lionel goes
out and as he turns he brushes against the purple statue, which
topples on its pedestal. He bangs the door shut after him violently,
and the statue falls to the floor and breaks into several pieces.
Maxwell and Helen look at it for a moment and then turn to each
other and laugh.)

Helen
Oh, look what’s happened to the “Emancipation of Woman”!

CURTAIN
Transcriber’s Notes
Punctuation, hyphenation, and spelling were made
consistent when a predominant preference was found in the
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obvious, and otherwise left unbalanced.
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