The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1904-01-02
WOMEN AND BUSINESS.

WOMEN AND BUSINESS.
There is a growing demand among
women for a field of action outside of
home. They are more and more
turning their attention toward those
occupations that once were thought
to belong exclusively to men. In
short, they are tired of what seems to
them a thankless task Of work
ing increasingly to make a good home
for others to enjoy and to come to for
rest and to get their necessities sup
piled, while they who bear the burden
of the house and housekeeping have
nothing to show for the service but
dilapidated bodies and dispirited
minds, often not receiving kindness
and respect from those they serve.
When husband and children are
thankless and inconsiderate, it is no
wonder women want to try the out
side world in the hope of finding a
need of reward and praise for we'll
doing that the home withholds.
The worker abroad often does win
more money and more enjoyment
than the wife and mother. Many
girl who has been earning money and
having all she desired before marriage,
has been so crippled by the pittance
her husband allows for running the
house and dressing herself and chill
dren, that she sighs for the good old
days of plenty and independence.
Especially is this true when she sees
her husband using all the money he
wants to smoke up and spit away, or
to drink and carouse with his friends.
Other women who have less waste
full and kinder husbands, are filled
with pity for those unfortunate wives,
and help along in the urgent demand
for more rights and privileges that
will enable women to take care of
themselves and not marry at all, un-
less they can find good men undefled
by the weed and strong drink-twin
evils in the decentralization of the
home and family.
I believe the farmers wife would
not care so much if she had to do with
little cash, if her husband were will
ing to share her deprivations and
were doing his best to get along.
Money is not the seat and center of
happiness by any means if women do
not know this, it is time they did.
All externals if purity and kindness
in the home are absent. "The love
of money is the root of all evil"-let
this not be forgotten. Money we
must have, to be sure it is a neces-
sity, as food and clothing and houses
to live in are. 1t is not the money
that does the damage, but the love of
it, the evils it leads into, the desire to
speculate and wrong others to gain
great sums that will give undue in
huence and excite admiration from
others. The proper use of ones own
just earnings will be a benefit, the
love of them will bring ruin. Count
less women have lost heavy, some
have lost their all, in grasping for big
dividends and interests. have known
those whom the world esteemed as
excellent women to take money from
safe investments in first-class farm
mortgages and put it elsewhere for
the sole purpose of getting bigger
interest-bigger than honest borrow
ers can afford to pay-and lose it all.
Ruin is staring that person in the
face who makes high interest rule
of action, rather than safe invest
ments.
Bank failures and general distrust
of them are the order of the day in
my section of the country. 1 can
count several that are now in the
hands of receivers. Many women
have lost, some of the entire amount
that some fond father or husband or
brother worked and stinted himself to
save and leave to them, thinking to
lift them above want and the necessi-
ty for hard work. And what was
the cause of these failures? In every
instance of every bank failure have
ever known there has been some fast
man, some money worshipper and
speculator at the head. Women trust
ed their money in them because they
thought a national bank .could not
fail they were deemed entirely safe
because the United States govern
ment is behind them. If you can't
trust Uncle Sam, whom can you trust
It is the intention of the law to
make these banks secure, and solid as
rock, but there seems to have been
no way yet invented to Offset the ma
chinations of the unprincipled money
lovers who sometimes find their way
to the head of these institutions. Di-
rectors get lampooned for not direct
ing, but an honest aged cashier of a
great city bank who has been en-
ployed in the bank he is now in over
fifty years, says it is impossible for
the directors of bank to find out all
they ought to know if cashier and
clerks withhold papers from them.
One of the first and most important
duties for directors to do would seem
to be to keep out spendthrifts and
sporting men from positions in them
Why they do not, is past finding out
They certainly know spendthrif'