The Glenwood post., 1905-10-07
CLEVELAND ROASTS
WOhEN'S CLUBS

We certainly ought not to be too
swift in charging the tendency toward
club affiliation on the part of our
women to a deliberate willingness to
forget or neglect their transcendent
mission OF home duties. Unquestion-
ably this tendency is partly due to the
widespread and contagious fever for
change or Encouragement which seems
to leave no phase of our peoples life
untouched. 1 believe it has also been
largely provoked and intensified by
the increase of club life among the
husbands and fathers of our land, and
by their surrender to such business
preoccupation or the madness of inor-
dinate accumulation. as results in the
neglect of wives and those to whom,
under all rules of duty and decency,
they owe attention and companionship
thus creating condition of mans
guilt which tempts retaliation in
kind.
No woman who enters upon such a
retaliatory course can be sure that the
man she seeks to punish will be other
wise affected than to be made more
Indifferent to home, and more deter
mined to enlarge the area of his selfish
pleasures. She can be sure, however,
that cheerlessness will invade her
home, and that il children are there
they will be irredeemsbly deprived of
the mysterious wholesomsness and de-
light Of an atmosphere which can
only be created by mothers loving
presence and absorbing care. She can
also be certain that. growing out of
the influence which her behavior and
example are sure to have upon the
conduct of the wives and mothers
within the range of her companion
ship. she may be directly responsible
for marred happiness in other house
holds, and that as an alder and abettor
of woman's clubs she must bear her
share of liability for the injury they
may inflict upon the domestic life of
our land. 1t must be abundantly
evident that. as agencies for retalia
tion or mans punishment, woman $
clubs are horribly misplaced and
miserably vicious.
To the honest minded women who
are inclined to look with favor upon
such of these clubs as indicate bene
hcent purposes and characteristics are
naturally not only of themselves ex
pansive, but that membership in one
such organization is apt to create a
club habit which, if it does not lead
to other similar affiliations, induces
liberation and defense of club ideas
in general. 1t is in this way that
many conscientious women, devoted to
their home duties and resentful of any
suspicion to the contrary, through
apparently innocent club member
ship subordinate their household inter
ests, and are lost to the ranks of the
defenders of home against such club
influences and consequences as the un
biased judgment of true womanhood
would unhesitatingly condemn. The
woman is fortunate and we'll poised
who. having yielded to whatever al
lurements there may be in a single
club membership. can implicitly rely
upon her ability to resist persuasion
to additional indulgence, and can fix
the exact limit of her surrender to its
infatuation
am persuaded that without ex
aggeration of statement we may as
sumo that there are woman's clubs
whose objects and intents are not only
harmful. but harmful in way that
directly menaces the integrity of our
homes and the benign disposition and
character Of our wifehood and mother
hood; that there are others harmless
in intent. but whose tendency is
toward the formation of the club