The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-08-25

What need is men. said the girl
from the small town. 81 never fully real
lied the. forlornness of the life led by the
girls in our village until after visit with
my city cousins when my wits have been
sharpened by contact with masculine in
tellect and my spirits heightened by the
subtle fattery of masculine admiration.
Now in our town.-and | think it is typical,
the really eligible men can be counted on
the fingers of one hand, while the girls.-
l can think now Of score or more of hand
some girls. lively girls. charming girls who
remain unmarried for the very logical rea-
son that there are no men for them to
marry When we were of the primary
school age there were as many boys as
girls among us. OF course, the obvious
reason for the disappearance of the male
element is the tendency of the boys 20 fee
from the small town as soon as they can,
often to make their fortunes and more often
to escape the boredom of village life. Who
can blame them? Not L, But it is hard
on the girls who stay at home, just the
same. Some of the girls escape to the
cites, too. but not all of us have a desire
to study medicine or do settlement work,
or to engage in lucrative occupations. L
could mention several who would much
prefer to be the mistress of home. To
be sure, girl may be married and be
unhappy; she is pretty sure to be unhappy
if she isn.! Then, too, for purposes pure
ly social as well as matrimonial we need
men. We have our Ladies' Literary Circle.
our Dante Club (although to tell the truth
we never study Dante). our Luncheon Club.
our church societies and other purely fem
mime organizations which help to pass away
lots of time We spend the afternoon and
stay to tea with each other and find many
ways of enjoying ourselves, or to help us
imagine We are enjoying ourselves, with
out the stimulating presence of mere man.
L love all the girls in set dearly, but
sometimes 1 get tired of conversations
about the latest pattern of corset covers.
OF course we have some men i'm our VIII
lage, but 1 think the bank cashier. who is
fat. and the secretary of the rolling mill,
who is beginning to get bald, are rather
overworked in the society line. Some of
us, you know, who have been away to
boarding school or who have by inheritance
traditions of gentility, fail to find attrac-
tive the hotel clerk who wears celluloid
collars and made ties and the druggists
young man who sprinkles himself with
cologne. We dance with these gentlemen
and their kind at the parties at the Armory.
If we didn't, fear We couldn't dance. We
know there must be the right kind Of men
somewhere, because we've read about them
in Richard Harding Davis. There is an
occasional wedding in our village to be
sure, but ii is usually the outcome of some
high school boy and girl Irritation. Once a
boy gets away to college or business life,
matrimony marks him for her own in some
other field than his native village. If Mr..
Carnegie and other well-intentioned philan-
thropists were on to their jobs they would,
instead of endowing libraries and institu-
tons of learning, establish fund to be
divided as a bonus among those young men
who elect to remain in their home town.
1 think I'll write to President Roosevelt
about that idea of mine; I'm sure he would
approve"