The Idaho scimitar. [volume], November 02, 1907, Page 12, Image 12

About The Idaho scimitar. [volume] (Boise, Idaho) 1907-1908

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Woman's Page
Gost of a Social Whim.
The influence of woman upon the affairs of man
is demonstrated by the tragical variance between
E. H. Harriman and Stuyvesant Fish. These two
strong figures of the financial world belong to dif
ferent social coteries, dominated by different women
—hence the breach, costing countless millions of
money and jeopardizing the control of thousands
of miles of railway.
When one of the social set at Newport refused
to invite another to an elite ball she was probably
as free from knowledge as from care that the grati
fication of her whim of vanity would cover the sea
of finance in this country with wreckage.
•
IV. G. T. U. 7\gainst Smoot.
At the twenty-first annual convention of the Wo
man's Christian Temperance Union of Southern
Idaho, held October 11 - 13 , 1907 , Mrs. Adaline A.
Garlock, the president, said :
"The retention of Reed Smoot in the United
States Senate was a severe disappointment to the
millions of Christian people who had interested
themselves in the case and who realize that this
action of Congress has assisted the establishment
all the more effectually of hierarchy, whose power
is already too strongly felt in the government of this
state."
Garing For Girls.
The good women of the United States are de
termined that society shall not escape society's re
sponsibility toward children and young people. They
are determined also that remedy rather than pun
ishment shall be applied. Experience has taught
that it costs less to protect the young person from
descent into an offensive life than to protect society
later on from the consequences of that individual
offensive life. Particularly is this true with regard
to girls, whose instinct is almost universally for
good, and who, if they fall into sin at all, fall there
through neglect or through a temptation superin
duced by man.
A striking instance of the expression of this holy
determination by women is found in the declaration
of Mrs. Henry Solomon of Chicago, who was re
cently elected president of the Illinois State Feder
ation of Women's Clubs. Mrs. Solomon says :
"Illinois is indulging in a fearful waste of its
children. The helpless girls who are left dependent
should be cared for and trained to lives of useful
ness, but they • are allowed to slip into paths of
crime and immorality because they cannot be
commodated in the institutions established for their
maintenance. Even when they do find refuge in
such homes they do not receive the food, training
or education that should be provided them.
"The women of the state will
ac
co-operate in an
effort to fit and train the young girls for lives as
home-makers. An intelligent domestic class and
pable nurses are needed everywhere. These are
avenues which are open and the club members feel
that it is in their power to afford assistance in this
way. They will become friends of the friendless
and mothers to the orphans. They will let the
homeless know something of home life.
"When we remember that the courts of Chicago
are turning out about 100 delinquents, defectives and
dependents every week who cannot be
dated in any institution whatever, but are compelled
to go back to the surroundings from which they
came, then we see the need of attention on the
part of the state. This state of affairs is due in
the main, I believe, to carelessness in the division of
taxes. It is easy for the state to legislate, but not
so easy to collect the money.
"The ideal system, and the one toward which the
ca
accommo
women of the state are working, is a sufficient num
ber of institutions for girls well equipped for their
care, and a more personal interest on the part of
the women themselves in individual cases."
The noble activity which women are showing in
affairs of the home, and the rightfulness of in
fluence which the home should exercise upon public
life and the expenditures of public taxation, are
bringing men—prominent in politics and business—
to a consciousness that they can no longer avoid
this great subject. Even practical politics concerns
itself at last with ethical questions; because so soon
as the practical politician learns, as the noble women
of the country are forcing him to learn, that he
cannot succeed when the sentimentality of the women
is against him, he at once becomes a convert to the
Cause of the Great Uplift of Humanity.
Tragedy of Four Wives.
Here is a case of modern polygamy in the Mor
mon church : James Thompson of Brigham City,
Utah, was the "husband" of three wives. With these
three wives he was dwelling in defiance of law when
the manifesto of the Mormon church was issued
pledging to the nation Mormon obedience to law.
With these three wives he continued to live in de
fiance of law after that manifesto and that pledge.
He received the amnesty of the Government, based
upon his solemn promise to observe the law ; he
received his civil rights and exercised them ; and
he continued to violate, the condition upon which
the amnesty was granted.
About ten years after the pledge and the amnesty;
after ten years of this notorious and offensive way
of living—enjoying the generosity of the Govern
ment -while violating all its conditions—James
Thompson was sent upon a foreign mission by the
Mormon church. From that mission he returned
recently, bringing with him a woman whom he in
stalled in his home or homes in Brigham City. She
became his fourth "wife."
This was a case of new polygamy and attracted
some attention. The church and the facile neigh
bors had condoned his polygamous living with his
three wives. The church condoned, countenanced,
advised and officiated in his new polygamous mar
riage. But the neighbors gossiped. So James Thomp
son was called to go to Mexico, to operate there
in conjunction with his fellow believers of the
church, in that place of refuge provided by the
church. When James Thompson went to Mexico
he took his fourth, being at that time his latest and
of course his youngest "wife." He deserted the three
older wives, leaving them in want and loneliness in
Brigham City, Utah.
James Thompson is in the full confidence of the
leaders of the Mormon church ; he occupies his sta
tion and his priesthood and his church authority in
Mexico.
And yet the Mormon church denies, and Apostle
Smoot in the Senate denied, any responsibility for
polygamy.
Will the good women of the United States sense
the tragedy which these circumstances indicate? Will
they condone those politicians, and will they sustain
in public life those pretended statesmen who vote
to increase the power of the Mormon church by
permitting its Apostle to sit and make laws for de
cent Christians to observe?
Gombined Perfection.
Gibbon, the historian, was forty-seven years of
age when he wrote a fanciful letter on marriage to
his friend, Lady Sheffield,
he said :
"Should you be very much surprised to hear of
my being married? Amazing as it may seem, I
do assure you that the event is less improbable
than it would have appeared to myself a twelve
month ago. Deyverdun and I have often agreed,
in jest and in earnest, that a house like ours would
In his communication
be regulated, and graced, and enlivened by an agree
able female companion ; but each of us seems de
sirous that his friend should sacrifice himself for
the public good. Since my residence here I have
lived much in women's company; and, to your credit
be it spoken, I like you the better the more I see of
you. Not that I am in love with any particular
person. I have discovered about half a dozen wives
who would please me in different ways, and by
various merits: one as a mistress (a widow, vastly
like Eliza ; if she returns I am to bring them to
gether) ; a second, a lively entertaining acquaint
ance; a third, a sincere good-natured friend; a
fourth, who would preside with grace and dignity at
the head of my table and family; a fifth, an excel
lent economist and housekeeper; and a sixth, a
very useful nurse.
"Could I find all these qualities united in a single
person, I should dare to make my addresses, and
should deserve to be refused."
The Gost of Fashion.
It is an aphorism of some of the social econo
mists that the expenditure by the rich for luxuries
constitute the opportunity of the poor to obtain
comforts. Such writers avow that the building of
one palace for a multimillionaire means an expendi
ture of money and the consequent employment of
toil which may afford opportunity for the construc
tion of a hundred cottages. Similarly they argue
that for every gown costing a thousand dollars which
a rich woman wears, a dozen poor women can ob
tain as a consequent result their appropriate rai
ment.
It is not the noblest devotion of money to ex
pend it upon extravagant clothing; but assuming
for a moment that this particular school of social
economists is correct, it will be interesting to know
what it costs to dress a rich woman for a year.
Gertrude Lynch tells the story in the November
number of Everybody's Magazine, as follows :
"A woman who wishes the name of being well
dressed, as fashion knows the term, must have at
least five or six imported costumes; also an equal
number of domestic afternoon and evening dresses
and of tailor-made gowns. There must be an ap
propriate hat for every out-of-door gown ; and these
cost anywhere from $50 to $100 or $200 apiece. In
summer, a fashionable woman must have forty or
fifty lingerie gowns, ranging from the cobweb of
lace to the simple mull, costing not more than $ 150 .
She must have morning gowns—she will pay $125
for a simple muslin with perhaps two yards of in
expensive lace on it. Half a dozen evening coats
for winter, and an equal number of lace or silk for
summer, are a matter of course. When the Irish
lace crochet coats first became popular, one shop
here sold 450 in a month, no one of them priced
less than $200. And the accessories, are in propor
tionate extravagance; for lingerie, handkerchiefs,
scarves and fans $5000 or $6000 a year is a con
servative estimate.
"A pair of gloves is worn but once; and delicate
shoes, made of imported leather to match the tint
of a fabric, suffer a similar eclipse after a debut in
a ballroom. For many women pride themselves on
never wearing a cleaned garment. After a couple of
wearings they will send an imported gown to a
second-hand dealer, receiving a $100 bill for the
creation that may have cost $ 800 . The dealer sells
it to an actress starting on her tour, to the society
leader of a small town, or to a member of the demi
monde.
"On the other hand, the woman who patronizes
the cleaning establishments spends there from $1500
to $1800 a year. For when one pays $20 to have
lace gown cleaned after a single wearing; when
gloves by the hundred and blouses fifty at a time
are sent to be renovated, it does not take long to
reach a sum that parallels the salary on which
many a man supports a family."
And this scheme of dress
woman of $100,000 per annum.
a
means a cost to one