The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-08-02
WOMAN'S WORLD

seriously how she feels. about this to
her husband, how it degrades her in
her own sight to be a dependent, and
ne still refuses to make her an allow
ance, she is justified in going out on a
strike There are precious few women
IN these days that can't make a living
for themselves
1t is the supine woman, too, who is
responsible for all the bad children, and
the hoodlum boys and girls who are
growing up. If we had mothers who
would weep and pray over their chill
dren less and spank more, we shouldn't
need any juvenile courts to try to do
the reforming that the parents should
have done in the first place If you
will investigate the subject, you will
md that almost without exception, it
is the tiabby, weak mothers who raise
up the men who are criminals and no
account while the men who do some
thing worth while in the world are the
sons of women of grit and muscle and
determination, who ruled their families
with strong hand.
Washingtons mother was a woman
of unusual force of character. Lees
was another, Lincoln's mother domi-
mated his youth, Grant tells in his me-
moirs of how his mother, a strong,
silent woman, Shouldered the burden
of the family supports Andrew Car
negie's mother scraped together a few
pounds and virtually brought the fam
lily over to America, where, although
she was only a peasant woman, she
could see there was opportunity for
the poor; Schwabs mother, when he
was a little boy working in the rolling
mill, got up and cooked his breakfast
before day, so that he might be on
time, and a man who is a millionaire,
and at the head of one of the largest
corporations in this city, has told me
often of how his mother, a proud old
Southern grand dame, would lock the
door to keep people from finding out
how poor they were after the war had
stripped them of their fortune, and of
how she cooked the mush and milk
that was their only food for weeks at
a time, but that she held them with a
grip of iron in their old social sphere,
and never for one instant ceased rear
ing before them the ideals of success
that she expected them to attain.
That womans sons were simply
bound to win out in life. They
couldn't help it. They had learned
courage, obedience, thrift, self-sacri-
fee, self-control-all the cardinal vir-
tues at their mothers knee, and the
world is simply waiting and clamoring
for that kind of people and is willing
to pay them.
1 know that when you ask a, woman
to develop her backbone, instead of
her emotions, you are asking a great
deal of her. For one thing, you are
asking her to exert herself instead of
do nothing. You are asking her to as
sumo responsibility instead of shove
the blame on Providence. It's always
dead easy to be sympathetic, and a
poultice probably has fewer qualms
of conscience than any other created
thing. It's a heap less fatiguing to
| say, Poor dear little Johnny has such
a temper" when Johnny is raising the
neighborhood with his bowls, than il
is to take a shingle and spank Johnny
into a decent regard for other peoples
rights and a strength of mind that
will control the temper but the mat
| ter doesn't end there. Some day John
ny, man grown, gets into a rage and
because his mother didn't have the
backbone to force him to control his
temper when he was young, he shoots
in blind fury, and the world calls il
murder.