The sun., 1898-02-19
THE NEW WOMAN.

THE NEW WOMAN.
Some Suggestions That May Be Useful
Here and There.
| have admired southern girls very
much ever since ! saw SO many of them
when our International league Of press
clubs visited Atlanta and the south in
1894 Because like them SO we'll / am
going to say word to them here. They
are among the most talented young
newspaper women we have when they
come north. Everybody else likes them
as we'll as I do. No matter what bust.
ness they go into they are apt to sue
ceed. But, my dear southern girls and
women, when you write for publication
don't begin by saying your family for
tunes were ruined by the war and that
you never would have thought of earn.
ing money only for that. We have heard
that statement so awfully many times.
Don't inform us either that southern
gentlemen" are bitterly opposed to the
ladies of their families working for mon.
ey. We have all known for hundred
years that some southern gentlemen
like some other gentlemen everywhere,
are almost as much opposed to having
their women folk work for living as
they are opposed to working themselves.
Don't mention that your family is one
of the oldest and most important social
ly in the south. We all know that too.
We have heard it several thousand times.
Every southerner's family is. You need
not say in your writings that you are
thoroughly feminine. We take that
for granted. Don't be particular to men
tion or to have somebody else mention
for you that you do not belong to a wo.
mans club, that you are opposed to
woman suffrage and that you have
horror of the new woman. Why, heaven
have mercy on your ignorant, ungrateful
soul! 1t is exactly the pioneer labors OF
woman suffrage women, the clubwomen
and the new woman that have made it
possible for you this day to come COM
fortably out of your chimney corner and
earn your living at some OF the occupa-
lions only lately opened to our sex.
Finally, do not bring into the fore.
ground your own or your family's per
sonality. The unfceling public does not
care rap about them. Just take up
your work quietly, bravely, grittily and
joyfully, as though you are proud OF it,
as you are, and go on to conquer, and
the Lord bless you!
The Woman's Journal tells the story
of how one of its subscribers, brave
Colorado woman who did her own
thinking, had husband that just hated
woman suffrage. She softly and silently
laid The Journal on his library table
after she had finished reading it every
week for year, and every week he
burned it without opening it. The sec.
ond year she did the same, but during.
this twelvemonth she caught him read
ing it occasionally when nobody was
looking. The third year he read it open.
ly, and the fourth he was an optspoken
and able advocate of full suffrage for
women. The arguments of the paper had
soaked into him psychically apparently.
There is place in the world for you
to fill. Find it for yourself. Do not al.
low yourself to he pushed or scolded or
coaxed into any place chosen for you by
somebody else if you do not like it. Do
your own thinking.
Three respectable and plucky young
women are making good living can.
vassing in cities for boot and shoe pol
ish The way they manage is this: They
go from Office to office, carrying bottles
of the polish. They open one Of these,
stoop down and with their own hands
black the gentleman S shoes. The polish
is an excellent one, and nearly every
man buys bottle Of it.
We are wearied to death of hearing
bigots dogmatize and say this or that
is not fitted for women or
that women are not suited to given
task just because they are women. The
individual man or woman is exactly
suited to anything he or she wants to
do and can do, no matter what it is.
Thus an individual man may be an ex-
cellent milliner, while an individual
woman may find her exact sphere in
cattle ranch. Some men
are this day earning their living trim.
ming bonnets. Several women are sue.
herding cattle in the west.
For heavens sake let the individual
choose his or her own work. 1t is the
individual who is to be considered in
overy case, not the sex or the race. Just
Keep your mouth shut aud don't dog
matize.
Display of strong emotion on small
occasions is sign of weakness and
Women will be degraded by being al
owed to 80 to the polls and vote. Oh,
'es! But it is no degradation to have
ncn approach them and try to brihe
hem to use their influence to induce
heir husbands to vote fer a United
states senator when his ballot is badly
wanted by one of the superior sex, us
$ openly claimed to have been done in
he case of Mrs. Griffith Of Ohio. That
$ all right and high minded aud honor
BILE and eXalts woman to that high
celestial which she should ever occupy
Il the masculine mind. Oh, yes. again!