The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-11-15
H BUSINESS WOMAN.
Commercial Life Does Not Destroy the
Home Instinct.
New York Tribune.

COmmercsni Lie Does Not Destroy the
Home Instinct.
New York Tribune.
They occupied a compartment Of the par
lor car. Three of them were business men.
men Of affairs, and their companion a gen.
tie. motherly soul. whose grazing hair.
soft voice and kindling eye spoke of a long
and close sympathy with her fellow travel
ers on the uphill roads,
1T seems to me-" said the oldest of the
four, land ours was one of the first firms
in our city to employ women as office as
s~istants) that generations Of business life
would not be able to rub out that ingrained
love of home that God must have given
Eve with her first breath. Women go into
it with more or less %enthuiasm, the first
few months earnings give a move sense
of citation and freedom. and they are apt to
get off a few declarations OF independence
on the strength of 1t. But after q year or
two the interest pals and-I say it regret
fully-the exception is the woman who does
not let her ideals down a notch or two to
compass a-home."
Il don't agree with you." began another
of the quartet, a much younger man,; lat
least, in my experience the results seem to
be pretty evenly divided. From what /
have seen women get the business habit,
II 80 HlOuGY Indu, even WHeu the money
is Of their own making, coined out Of their
own flesh and blood. you might say, just as
much as men do. They are just as mercen-
airy when once they get the TASTE indeed, 1
think more so, for a woman always goes
farther than a man when she's started, and
corroding tendencies cut deeper burrows in
the feminine character than In our rougher
brand. Don't you think SO? At least that
has been my experience. / have known a
number of business women who have I'M
mistakably cared, and cared much, for
rnnn unhA rarn IN 81 fhADa hut fhAu
simply wouldn't let themselves reach the
stage where they would be willing to give
up their incomes and settle down to living
on the money some one else earned.
Two or three married on condition that
1t should interfere in no smallest way with
their business interests. They were willing
enough to enjoy the double income. 1t was
not a question of loss of freedom the
average American woman Is pretty sure of
her freedom under any circumstances. 1t
was a matter solely of creature comfort
and, to my mind, IL is as nmin to kill as
to sell ones womanliness for material gain.
Then, too, / think the more or less free and
easy manners, the constant and unconven-
tional mingling OF women with men COM
paratively strangers to them, is distinctly
harmful to a woman. She loses much of her
constituencies, discrimination and sense OF
womanliness. 1t is impossible for her to
have two standards-one for her own home
and personal friends and one for her bust
ness life and acquaintances.
so many things are done and allowed
which are accounted and really are no
harm under the circumstances, but which,
however, insensibly lower woman's whole
standard, and with It those of the men with
whom she associates. 1 know for a fact
that few of us would keep eternally up to
the mark If that didn't also mean up to
the expectations of the women we know
and respect. To my mind, the increase Of
women in the business world is to be de-
plored as a misfortune, from both points
of view, and no woman for whose welfare
i am rQSnOnSihlp shall ever he Snhiectp cd 70
such influences
You don't think" began the motherly
old soul, hitherto silent, that, while a few
women may lose by the ordeal, the great
mass may serve as leaven, and our in
grained womanliness sooner or later make
itself felt, even in the business world? 1t
value of this quality If you make 1t SO per-
ishable a thing. Don't you think, even
granting We must sooner or later show the
true fibre below the veneer, under the stress
of ~workaday tension, that there are enough
of us Of good grain to stand the revelation?
Wouldn't a mercenary woman be just as
mercenary In her own homer"
YES" chimed in the man who had not
spoken before, when there was nothing
open to a woman excepting dressmakinC
and school teaching: and little Of these, it
man when she married. 1t was the natural
trend Of affairs, and often enough scarcely
taxed individual choice or tested individual
inclination. But. as things are now, al
most any woman can earn a fairly COM
Portable living in some moderately easy
way, and the fact that the large majority
of business women do still marry proves, 1
think, that their innate womanltness can
weather the gale of even business storm
and stress. / admit that for q generation
or two we are likely to have some feminine
freaks in the business world. Every change
Is marked by extremes, and pioneers are
often enough unlovely characters. But the
pendulum swings back again in time, the
balance Is struck, and another point Of
progress Is licked off on the face of things.
I believe a generation or two hence every
home will be the happier and more whole
some because women are learning now how
1t feels to come home at night tagged in
body and brain, and be talked to for an
butchers bill, the gossip next door or the
personal aches and pains suffered by vari-
Gus members of the household during her
absence. / believe homes will be happier
because men will know by experience that
women can fill the place of any of the
ton Of such work Is voluntary. Homes
will be happier because women know the
value of a hundred cents, and, by expert
ence, the amount Of flesh and blood that
goes to the earning of them. We will all
be the better, / think, for the broader out
look and scope of personal interests that
shoulder to shoulder work In the business
world necessarily gives a woman. BY that
time the froth and dregs of the new
draught will both have disappeared, and
We will have the strong current Of woman
illness at its best"
The bright eyes Of the motherly woman
beamed gratefully on the speaker from
under the halo of whitening hair. The
conductor called some polysyllabled and I'M
Ineligible name, and the little party.
problems. pessimism, hope and all, disap-
peared in the darkness of the outer world.