Search America's historic newspaper pages from 1756-1963 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities external link and the Library of Congress. Learn more
Image provided by: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Library, Urbana, IL
Newspaper Page Text
CONFESSIONS OF A WIFE PAULA NEWTON, SOCIETY GIRL, "BELONGS," BUT NOT PAULA, THE WORKING GIRL "It was a pretty hard lesson to learn, Margie," begins Paula's next instalment in Pat's paper, "but it is one of the first a girl who, goes out into the world to earn her living must learn. "Sooner or later you come to know you must work and fight like a man. You must not expect or want chivalry from any one of the other sex, for the jnuch vaunted chivalry which men deem such a masculine virtue is only a little polite atten tion they pay the woman. "I learned that it did not hurt me to stand talking to some theatrical manager or some other employer of woman's labor while he" sat without coat or collar, his feet on the table, his hat on his head and a big cigar sticking out of the corner of his mouth. The only hurt I felt a this was that I had to talk to such 'pigs,' as Emma called them. Decent men dislike such a man's company quite as much as decent women. "Mud stains can easily be cleaned off. The old saw about mud stick ing has become as obsolete as fairy stories. Self-respecting working girls apply a human vacuum cleaner to their minds after talking to men of such caliber and go on their sev eral .ways without feeling hurf. "It takes a little while and many shocks before you get this hard les son learned, however, and I always pity the girl who must learn it "For a while it seemed to me, Mar gie, that every man thought every woman who was not taken care of by some other man was his rightful prey. He never gave the girl who was making her living honestly the benefit of the doubt, but asked sneer ingly when you repelled his ad vances, 'Who is the other man?' "These thoughts that I am voicing to you now came long afterward .when I had tried many ways of mak ing my living, and proved the great est thing in the world the psychol ogy of sex. "That "first night at the College Inn, however, I was too miserable with the sight of those of my own class down there eating good food and having a merry time while I had to take insults. "And yet, Marie, what was the dif ference? Only about six months ago I was like them. I had all the care and adulation that could be be stowed. These I had taken as my rightful due and I had the respecful, chivalrous attention of every man, good, bad or indifferent "You see, each one knew I 'be longed.' I was being cared for by some other man, Paula Newton, the daughter of the reputed million aire, and her father's millions were her protection. But the same Paula Newton,' daughter of an embjzzler and suicide, struggling alone to hold her head above water, was different She 'belonged' to no one Like a poor, lost, little calf, she was his who was able to put his brand on her. "Margie,, just the-other day I saw in the papers where one of these pro tected parasjte women bemoaned that feminism was teaching women to 'work, fight and love like a man.' Certainly that fortunate lady has never had to work, fight and love like a woman unprotected by some man." (To Be Continued.) o o HERE'S YOUR CHANCE, GIRLS , A jolly business man wants two capable women of small means' to occupy his modern cottage in Berk eley, near campus, board owner and take working interest in remuner ative pleasant office business; mat rimony considered. Box 2685, Chron icle. San Francisco (CaL) Chron icle. ' WjmmmmmmimmmMmmmMm