The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-04-12
THE EXPERIENCES OF
MRS. J. MATRIMONIAL BLISS
She Tells Her Friend, Miss Emily Lonely Why She Is No
Longer Club Woman and Unable to Match a Dress
Braid Without Making Boch of It,

BY EMILY HOLT.
Copyright, 1903, by Emily Holt.

wasn't so emancipated as 1 thought
1 was. At this crisis it occurred to
me that 1 was giving a good deal of
attention to other peoples business
while my own affairs were getting into
a snarl that threatened tragedy.
did not go to that convention. In
stead l put Bobby to bed, with his
newly arrived grandmother as nurse.
and whirled into the kitchen and
welded a soapy dishcloth and an egg
beater in place of the oaken gavel of
authority.
Thereafter, I observed that John
Bliss didn't find it necessary to spend
a single evening downtown shaving at
that mysteriously pressing business,
and yet 1 hadn't said a reproachful
word nor shed a tear.
1T was in that week, too, that
wrote a paper for the next meeting of
my club and 1 called it "A New Light
on the Suffrage Question; or, the Roy
al Road to the Ballot Box It was
by all odds the best paper I ever
| wrote, for it embodied the actual re-
suits and effects of practical expert
ment and was full of plain common
sense. 1t dwelt on the fact that I
had suddenly discovered that the
quickest way to get the voting privi-
lege was to give up organized petit
tioning and bullying of masculine leg
| islatures and noisy, expensive, nerve
wracking women's conventions.
I'm place of these hitherto I'M
profitable and unproductive methods,
actually suggested that club women
dispense to their homes; feed their
husbands on the pick of the market
and the culinary art; get the children
happily off to school in the morning
and smilingly to bed at night; serve
| meals by the clock; do spring and fall
cleaning by stealth, or some improved
and convenient system; and make the
butchers bill look like 80 cents, the ice
man like a philanthropist, and the dry
goods account a mere trifle. In addi-
ton, 1 advised wholesale boycott of
the servant problem, by every woman
going into her own scientifically fitted
/ little kitchen and proving what she
| has been telling the incompetent hired
help for years-that cooking is mighty
easy and homework just good exer-
else for any healthy set of feminine
| muscles.
II ventured to prophecy that, as a
| result of this happy state of domestic
| affairs, countless husbands would be
so sleek and well fed SO grateful and
admiring, so awe struck and surprised,
so humble and docile that, for the ask
ing, they would lay the voting privi-
lege at our feet and honestly consider
| incalculable blessings the women had
bestowed.
Il remarked forcibly that it was far
better to win and rule by love than by
fear, and that men are human and
more apt to be led to make conces-
sions by force of generous treatment
and diplomacy than by sedition,
privy conspiracy and rebellion. had
to admit that this course would in
volve the closing up of several hun
dred dozen of other clubs besides the
suffrage organizations, but, after 5000
years of trying to break men of the
club habit, this fancy of women to-
day for multiplying clubs of their
own on every preteXt did look rather
queer and inconsistent.
my heaviest volley of argument I
kept for the last, when 1 called my
listeners attention to the fact, made
evident by statistics and observation,
that with the growth of womens clubs
had been noted and appalling increase
in premature grayness, double chins,
wrinkles and nervous prostration. |
shuddered to think of what must be
the ultimate results, to feminine looks
especially, of many more years of the
club habit.
81 could see that with some of the
young and pretty married women my
SuSSSStlOuS were TAKEN very SGIlOuS-
ly, but by the majority my paper was
voted down as unworthy of considera-
ton by the strong, progressive wom-
an of the hour.
I'm me- Miss Emily, you no longer
see a woman who is unable to dis
cuss Duse, worship the latest long
haired god of music, or match a dress
braid without making a botch of it,
No more do 1 consider the mystery of
the Infinite while l wash my back hair
at the shampoo club down the street
and 1 have ceased to believe that we
can elucidate the whole trouble of do
mestice service by getting the house
maids, cooks and laundresses togeth-
er and reading Ruskin to them in
nice little club of their own.
my present conviction is that the
best club in the world for woman Is
her own home. If she can conduct
that on creased wheels, she has
proved herself the possessor of more
tact, patience, patriotism, common
sense and genuine business ability
than the president of all the federated
woman's clubs of the universe, and
she deserves well of her husband and
of her country"