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About Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922 | View Entire Issue (July 21, 1912)
Ihe Omaha Sunday Bee Magazine Pag Copyright, 1912. by American-Examiner. Great Britain Rights Reserved.' M':" ff Jrm ffeS It An Answer to Mrs. Wilson Woodrow by Grace Livingston Furniss 5 4ifi 11 sites," as Mrs. Woodrow her jewel." Declares. Men Like 'em Best That Way, and Wouldn't Have Them Independent Economically (or Any Other Way) for Anything! ON this page Is printed Miss Gracs Livingston Furnlss's reply to Mrs. Wilson Woodrow's scathing ar-' ralgnment of American Wives recently printed In this newspaper. Miss Furniss, whose view by no means coincides with that of Mrs. Woodrow, is "a well known playwright She is the author of "A -Brass Monkey." - She wrote that brilliant comedy, "The Man on the Box," and the farce, "The Man on the Case." "Mrs. Jack" and "The Colonial Olrr are also from her pen. She dramatized "The Deluge," one of David Graham Phillips's most successful novels. She is also a writer of essays, and her wit has gained for her wide celebrity. Being of one of the Knickerbocker fam ilies, and in touch with the smart set and the Inner circle of theatrical life. Miss Furniss knows the American wife in all her aspects. By Grace Livingston Furniss (The Distinguished American Playwright.) IT Is rather difficult to see how eco nomic Independence will release woman ' from being a parasite on her husband. , The average man does not wish to mar ry a woman who is economically inde pendent He U not seeking a wife who will leave their home to take care of It celf between eight and six, and then sit down to dinner quite as tired and .jaded as her husband, to wrangle over the tar iff. She might be superior, but think how unpleasant! The average man's Ideal is -one heart, one mind, one soul for the household, and that one his. This Is all wrong, of course; but that Is the way men feel about it; so unless, as Mrs. Woodrow suggests, women do the proposing But no, that wouldn't help un lets she was a very strong woman, for the average man would hive to be chloro- and noble and splendid and perfectly re liable and prudent and thrifty man gets tired of her and goes out to find a nice grass widow who will scramble his ideas in a turkey trot ; 1 , All this and more being the deplorable Ideal of man, of what use is economic in dependence? Mrs. Woodrow's highly entertaining ar ticle Is like a Roman candle which goes off In seven different directions and ends in a small stick. At the end she admits that her strictures on the American wife apply only to a certain number of idle rich women in cities. Since this is true of what use Is eco nomic lndepndence? Women who are dev- astatlng their husbands' bank accounts in one paragraph, cannot be suffering from the Ignominy of asking for money to buy l ' i - i TV r iTTT tmmmm 7 J MWViV-.J n't 'tWWM : : :n,IYY K-IrKW-t-KV IW-tt-.Wi: : : : : .JSa;-: S;!:::: : i : : : : : : : : : ::::.-?jr "The dream V . J 1 the average. "7 ' ' J young MIf V T N,. J ' mn' virx St! - i fancy U I j X. y"j . f luffy and " y eoauafttati I J -mr v trifung- i bunch W of j&? bewildering i fatcina- I Hon." j "They speak with grief of the immoral type of the idle woman's beauty formed and dragged to the altar by the economically Independent woman. As a sad matter of fact men like para sitic women who depend on them for every thing, Including thoughts. The Dream Girl of the average young man's fancy is fluffy and sweet and coquettish and trifling. He doesnt wish to find either Ink or flour on her fingers nor to hear her tell how many pounds of graham bread and apples will make an American citizen of , a Russian baby. He wants her to turkey trot and bunny hug and golf, and Juat be a bunch of bewildering fascination. - And', after he marries her he wants her to keep him "guessing. Men are like puppies. They run after anything that runs away. . When a woman Is sweet and devoted v a hat In the next paragraph. At least they can only do that in paragraphs." In real life the Idle wife of the rich hus band Is doing exactly what her husband , married her for. She is a valuable asset because she represents him socially and advertises him financially by the magnlfl cence of her Jewels and motors and en tertainments. This type of woman Is always painfully good to look at Highbrowed ladles who have managed to preserve their economic independence by oh, any of the pleas-, ant ways open to a downtrodden sex speak with grief of the immoral type of the idle woman's beauty; they all admit it is there. Furthermore, several dozen hard work ing artisans in all the small arts that cater to rich and idle women alone depend on this particular lady for their livelihood. Do not, I pray you, Mrs. Woodrow, leave them to mourn by setting the idle ones to work. Incidentally, strong men would fall dead if they tried to keep half of the social dates of this Idle lady who has ner vous prostration from ten to two on Sunday, and then goes on as usual. Considering all this, why call ber a parasite? Unless dollars and cents are the only valuable asset, It would seem as If this lady may be said to earn 'as much ae the eco nomically Independent who brings homo twelve dollars a week. Mrs. Woodrow mis ; takenly places manual labor ahead of mental If the wife, does he I work of a general house worker she ia too fagg ed mentally to be much of a companion for her husband, and saves pos sibly twenty dollars a month. If she has ex ecutive ability enough to run her house prop erly, and keep up the social end of the camp aign, she may be help ing him to earn a hun dred thousand. . Mrs. Woodrow has for gotten a great deal in this attack upon the women who are the bone and sinew of our country, of which we have been hearing so much of late. For instance, she has forgotten the large number of women who help their one servant in the household work, or who do all their house hold work. These women predominate in this country. Indeed, they predominate so largely that the other type is, it seems, scarcely worth discussion. There are many such women as she describes in New York. Tes, and in two or three othr large cities of this country. But the large cities do not rep resent America. They misrepresent it. The true representation Is found in the small cities, in the vilage and in the coun try, where Mrs. Woodrow seems never tt have been; or if she has visited them has not seen the truth there spread before her. In Indianapolis, for instance, I know bril liant women, of fine intellect who are good wives, mothers and housewives, and who keep at most one servant Tet they find time to belong to clubs and to take an intelligent interest in what is happening in the world. They know art and history and politics better than the women in the large cities know dress. These are the women to be considered. They are the vast body of American wives. Fancy these women going into offices to become economically independent Their families would think them crazy and there would be a reign of domestic anarchy ended only by mother dropping her busi ness fad. Mrs. Woodrow's 4nswer to the antici pated question: . "What will become of the children when Mother goes out to work?" is a curious one. She says: "I see no reason why the State shoe Id not take care of the young. Most women, as a matter of fact are not efficient to care for their own children." -. Shades of all the dear departed mothers of the race: "Not efficient?" Nature made each mother more efficient than any other woman In the world could be to j care for that particular child. Children brought up by other than the guiding hands of the mother, whether It be in In stitutions or in so-called "homes," or by nurses, are machine raised children. Who ever heard of a genius so reared? There is a shadowy unattested story that out of a foundling- asylum came a child who became the Governor of his adopted State. Even granted that this hazy story be true, a Governorship Is not the most exalted office, and if I read my politics aright the office has often been "One heart, one mind, one Soul and that one his." unworthily held. The machine-reared child may be scientifically reared. It is never lovingly brought up.. And love is obsolutely necessary for a child's mental and character growth. There are machine-reared children who have grown into selfish, useless citizens, but no George Washington nor Abraham Lincoln was so reared. They came from homes where the mother was a constant presence, not a nervous remnant of a daily down town business struggle. Such a woman would never have given ns a Presi dent of the United States, will never five us one.' "Men are like puppies. They run after anything that runs away.'
