The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1899-04-02
fit the Paris Fair
Cbere lJiII be no Wcnhan's Building.
Winifred Black Is Glad Of tt.

New York, April 1.-Winifred Black, il
the Journal says:
Mr.. Ferdinand Peck of Chicago, is Il
trouble.
He and the Paris Exposition are goin:
to be boycotted.
The Woman's National, Industrial anc
Patriotic League in solemn congress as
sembled has said il.
Mr.. Peck and some of the other expo
siticn commissioners have calmly bu
firmly announced that there is to be NJ
woman's building at the Paris Fair.
Whereupon the League aforesaid ha:
arisen and called upon the women OIL
America to take thar dolls and go nome
and never play in Mr.. Peck's yard any
more.
Why, ladies, how can youi
Poor Mr.. Peck is doing the best he can
There's is no room in Paris for any
woman's building. There is hardly room
enough for an American building bic
enough TO satisfy a Mohawk Valley Fair
association. Mr.. Peck didn't build Paris
nor yet lay out the grounds. and, besides
there is no room anywhere any time, for
any kind of woman's building.
If you want bed quiz display or a tidy
exhibition, call these doubtless very in
teresting things by their right names and
without any reference to the sex OF the
persons who made them.
A woman's building is supposed TO be a
monument to the wonderful genius of the
modern woman.
1t Is a sign post pointing out the road
to her failures.
1t is badenOughtoknow within our secret
hearts that men have beaten US at our
own games right straight along up ID this
very year Of grace 1S99-but why, in the
name of all that's practical, why hire
a brass band I oproclaim that fact?
The finest dresses at the Paris EXPO
sition will be designed and made by men.
The greatest marvels of the pastry
cooks art to be seen there will be made
by men.
The display of musical instruments and
of the memorials dedicated to the musical
composers will bring out the fact that men
have exceIled in this particularly femi-
nine art.
Every other woman Of today has driven
her friends distraught "practicing' to be
a musician.
How many Of them have become music
ians?
Where is the woman composer, or even
the great woman interpreter of fine in
strumental music?
Every other woman Of today has taken
lessons in art"
Where are the women who can paint
great pictures?
All these little things are plain enough
for the wayfaring man to see. He might
be so busy looking at other things that
he wouldn't notice it if women did per-
sst in beating a large and enthusiastic
tom-tom, which would call the attention
of the celebrated fool himself. to the
real facts in the case.
woman who can do work worth doing
wants it judged by the standards by which
mems work IS Judged.
You would not please Nine. Sarah Bern
hardt if you told her that you considered
her acting very good ''for a woman"
1t would go hard with any member of
any league whatsoever who attempted to
persuade Rosa Bonheur to put her picture
into an exhibit where it would be labelled
by the mere fact of its being there as an
inferior work of art.
I'd hate to b ethe committeeman who
had to tell Harriet Hosmer that her
statues were good enough to go into the
woman's building but not good enough to
go into the art gallery.
once saw a man who could play way
Down Upon the Suwanee River on the
violin with the bow held between his toes.
1 was quite entranced until 1 began 10
think how much better ne could probably
play it if he deigned to use the common
everyday way.
Doubtless I was wrong
The only virtue his playing had or could
have was his freak" way of doing il.
The woman's building idea is freak
idea
I went into the Woman's Building at
the Worlds Fair in Chicago. and it made
me feel like a lone wanderer at some
'wondrous category OF marvels."
Nothing that was there was there be-
cause it was good.
1t was there because a woman had made
It,
And Oh, and oh. the things those women
had made,
And the things that other women stood
around and said about them.
asked good little woman from Iowa
what she liked best at the Fair.
She didn't hesitate a minute.
The Womans unding and the Prune
Horse" she said. She was dead in earn
est
And I am s1eadinearnest now when
say that 1 believe that the majority of
women are beginning to resent being re-
yarded as freaks"
They do not want the things which
they regard as serious efforts TO be classed
With the ''prune horse
The woman's building at any fair is sure
to be full Of pictures by people who can't
paint. decorations by people who can't
decorate. and ideas by people who can't
hink.
The freak violin man did very well at a
side show. but he would have been rather
,ut Of place at symphony concert
The woman who does things very well
or woman" or surprisingly well for an
amateur. IL all very wei at her home or
II small and earlies among her friends /
,ut she and her works have no place ar = !
worlds fair
Mr.. Peck and gentlemen OF the exhibitioa |
I salute ye! You done
loble." And every woman who Is trying /
o do real work in the world vii applaud (
-ou when she gets time to st down and |
hink II all over.