The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-04-12

1--WE been invited to join the new
womans club round the corner" de-
murely confessed Mrs John Matri-
monial Bliss to Miss Emily Lonely,
who comfortably toasted her cork
soles on the fender, while she trifled
with her second cup of tea.
What sort of a club?" inquired the
caller
1.-The president is the famous Mrs.
Bernice Bowman Bouncer, who has
addressed the State Legislature, run
for Congress and believes in woman's
rights and the suppression of polyg-
amy and war and vice and trusts"
said Mrs. Bliss. This list of topics
for debate this year covers very nearly
all the burning questions of the hour,
from Cosmic Star Dust to the kind of
pictures we can allow the President to
hang in the White House. 1t is feder-
ated all right, too, with the Pan
American Society for the Superinten-
dence of Purity in Literature, Art, the
Drama, Music and Costume; with the
Trans-Continenta1 Ladies' Associa-
ton; with the Interoceanic Dress Re
form League, and dozens more of the
most powerful combinations of femi-
nine intellect, influence and progress
| not excluding the Bi-Weekly Lunch
| Club and the Unsectarian Tattling So
| ciety. Already there are ninety-f1ve
| members paying dues and writing
papers. more are clamoring to be let
in, and the Greek motto on the club
seal signifies, so the president ex-
| planned that woman must wake from
her sluggard's sleep and grapple with
the problems of the day"
How nice and purposeful and
stimulating that sounds" commented
Miss Emily, when Mrs. Bliss stopped
for breath. 81 hope you joined
You may think the less of me, but
1 didn't" replied the hostess. IT con-
fessed that in my bold bachelor girl
days, before John Bliss persuaded me
to resign my liberty and my latch key
L had dreamed that woman might
| still be free. but that l had had ex-
periences to prove that after all matrf-
mony was the most interesting and pre-
occupying profession in the world, and
when a woman did all her duty in that
| line she really had no time and no
need for the new movements.
| "Of course, the revelation of so be-
logged and semi-barbaric an intellect
as mine closed the incident. Evident
ly 1 was considered no loss to organ
| lied woman, and I nobly forebore
| from saying that / was not able to see
much practical use in woman's clubs,
! anyway and that 1 believed there
were a score or two too many in this
| town already.
Don't look so cloudy Miss Emily
Have another cup of tea, and let me
assure you that the real questions of
the hour to be grappled with are not
the privileges of the ballot, nor Pla-
tonian philosophy, nor the discovery
of the Ego, but Just the same old
| questions that have been troubling
womankind since the Ark landed.
Il know whereof I speak, for be-
| tween you and me and the gas logs,
there has been a brief but painful in
| terval in my married life when I, too,
was strong-minded woman; when I
thought it perfectly splendid to ex-
tend my intellectual horizon; to have
| mornings with Aristotle or Socrates
and Thursday afternoons with Kant;
to find that 1 was part of the univer-
sal consciousness, and that think is
a function. Haven't I sat up far into
the night writing papers on subjects
that would have stumped Lord Bacon,
attended conventions of mothers
spoken LUMINOSITY on questions of
child study, talked like a three-volume
scientific work on the psychology of
goo and dada and sat on commit
tees, and circulated petitions, and
served as a delegate t-large, and
been just as emancipated as you
please and considerably proud of my
self, also?
''To my disgust and amazement,
however, I found that a profound
knowledge of the philosophy of the
oversoul and the sanctity of the ballot
protiteth a woman nothing, when her
maid of all work announces that her
great grand-aunt has died on her.
with 'bronkittis,' without warming and
that a weeks holiday with wages
must be devoted to the old woman's
obsequies; when Bobby comes home
from kindergarten with a bad case Of
mumps; when mother-in-law writes to
say that she and her trunks can be
expected by the 2:10 train for a nice
long visit; and when John telephones
up, for the third time in the week, to
say that he is obliged to stop down.
town again for dinner and the whole
evening, in order to finish up some
pressing business.
''If she is a thoroughly emancipated
woman, this state of domestic affairs
makes small difference. She gets in
trained nurse for Bobby, heads off
her mother-in-law with a good strong
wire about contagious complications
in Bobby's case, and let's John go his
own evil ways, while she regards it as
her highest duty to bundle off to the
other side of the United States, with
four hundred other women delegates,
to the Trans Mississippi suffrage con-
Vention. There she forgets her woes
in the Joy of wearing one of the most
becoming lace-encrusted foulards at
the show and in being interviewed by
reporters, quoted as Mrs. F'lossie
rockingham De La Porte Bliss, and
described as the possessor Of a ringing
voice, a command of stirring elo-
quence and born leader of women.
Fortunately, though, 1 found