Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-04-23
Exg0RIATEDB By FRENCH
PRESS SLAMS THE AMERICAN
IDEAS OF MORALITY.

: >
II Maxim Gerky desires sympathy In the
him and the partner OF his Joys and sor-
sows In bond unsanctined by church or
law, he win find ample satisfaction in the
attitude of the entire French press, says a
cablegram from Paris.
Never have the basic standards of moral
ify Of the two countries been brought into
such sharp contrast as in this hue and cry
over the Gorky incident and the stigma
attached to his association with Nine An
dreieva, the Russian actress while his own
wife is living and undivorced.
The distinct refusal Of the American peo-
pie to accept the continental Interpretation
and, incidentally, the moral half loaf in the
case OF the distinguished novelist and his
ehere annie, Is sneered at and laughed TO
scorn by all the Paris papers, which, with
out exception, protest against the "out-
rage In the name of liberty, good sense,
good manners and every other social obli-
cation. and they all declare the Americans
are the slaves of a worn-out convention.
Americans Singular People.
Even the staid Temps, which so rarely
let's its feelings get the better of IL, is be-
trayed into an ebullition over the '.extraor-
binary American concept of true morality y
1t points out politely that this singular peo-
pie across the water is meddling in an af-
fair which does not concern it; that all the
fitness having been observed-the family
matter settled with perfect amiability on
both Satisfactorily is entitled to respect for
having fulfilled his duties in ne spirit and
the letter, and public notice OF his domes-
tic relations is therefore impertInent.
But 1t is Gustave Kahn, one Of the young
er writer's. who reveals the cause of the
of fol iv, fh4
movement In America. The inordinate and
absurd regime of woman in the United
States, he says, IS at the bottom of it.
Her one idea is that man should be kept In
leading strings from the cradle to the
grave. that he should work while she plays
He amuses himself with fling at the dis
sertatfons on all manner of subjects to
which she listens unabashed in lecture
courses. of which she therefore sets the
tone.
American Women to Blame.
He remarks that she wanders free over
Europe. unescorted. and not always dis
Greet, and hints that IL American writers
were free to handle all topics with French
frivolitiy some of her journeys might be
served up in spicy scandal.
The American woman, Kahn goes on,
insists that her literature must be modest
even If her life is not. And as literature
must for these selfish motives be kept
chaste, tie writer's of 1t must first be bound
to scrupulous decorum. Madame cannot
permit her propriety to be shocked. The
explosion of wrath of those who had pre-
pared receptions and ceremonies of grow
cling alteration before Gorky, he adds, in
piquant conclusion, only go to show that
his would-be entertainers had manifestly
never read a line of his works. He argues
that it would be impossible to turn three
pages of Gorky without discovering that
he snaps his fingers at all marital bonds,
and even passionately advocates free love.
How such a thing could occur lin the
can understand. He apparently looks to
the American humorist to expend the Walls
of his whitening irony on these absurd
manifestations of the outworn feminine
pietist.'