The day book. [volume], January 13, 1914, NOON EDITION, Image 2

About The day book. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1911-1917

Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL

                
furnace of necessity. We are find
ing new values, making new adjust
ments.
"We are indeed,' Miss Wald re
plied. "We are learning more and
more that every advance-4n democ
racy brings people nearer together
and that good will between man and
man depend upon respect and rever
ence." When women share equally
with men the responsibility for right
eousness in government and when
their counsels on matters- of public
welfare are given the dignity the bal
lot bestows, there will follow a new
sense of comradeship, a new sense of
fellowship between men and women;
woman will not be the unacknowl
edged power behind the- throne she
will share the throne!"
"I have never been able to see that
wnmfvn have pyertpfl p.ven an imar.-
If knowledeed nower behind the throne
in this country," I interjected.
"That's what makes our history
dull reading compared with that of
France or of England. And even in
those countries were 'indirect influ
ence' was exerted by women, it was
almost invariably by the wrong wo
men!" "That is triie, too," Miss Wald
agreed. "Years ago Mrs Sydney
Webster said that American men are
not really good husbands, that they
pet and spoil their women, but that
they do not permit them to influence
them or to participate in their se
rious affairs. Recently a foreign
critic, in writing his impressions of
the United States, said that he could
hot see that our women received se
rious consideration except that here
and there a woman like Jane Addams
is respected and her opinion carries
weight. He thought the mass of
American women without influence."
"Yet the judges in New York
courts have often told me that the
most serious domestic difficulties
which they have to solve result from
the foreign wife's sudden realization
of her improved status," I objected.
Miss Wald laughed at this first
fruit of the suffrage campaigns. I
asked her If she had found the new
ideals of women had produced any
effects on their desire to marry and
make -a home.
"No,"" she said. "It has not change
ed their wish to. marry, but it has
changed their choice of husbands. It
is very interesting to observe this
change in our settlement girls. As
Miss Lillian D. Wald..
a result of the influences they have
absorbed here, some of them have
asked the men who were courting
them certain questions about their
past lives and their fitness for mar
riage. A man perhaps would not like
it and a girl would refuse him. Later
she would meet some man who un
derstood and respected her questions
and liked her the better for lem.
In the course of my conversation I