The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1907-08-26
WOMAN Of PAST
STILL CHARMS
NDUSTRlALISM ABSORBS MUCH
THAT is BEST AND
HIGHEST,

(F'rom the ST. Louis Globe Democracy
Under the amazing weight of statis-
woman in our industrial and commercial
life, it is pleasing to get such a pleas
ant view of the old woman as writer
in one of the magazines gives. If it be
a dissolving view, all the more should
We treasure it in the future as a pleas
ing picture of that happy state from
which man has failed. Let us fix it in
the eye of our readers so firmly that
it will remain there:
Harriet's. fundamental. quality is
LONELINESS, comfortableness. Her tea
kettle seems always singing; an inIe-
Unable tabbiness, as of feather cush-
IONS turks in her dining room, a right
warmth of table and chairs, indie
scriably comfortable at the end of a
chilly day. A busy, good smelling
steam arises from all of her dishes at
once, ard the light in the middle of the
ia BILE is of a redneSs that enthrallS the
human soul. AS for Harriet herself.
she is the perSOnificatiOn of comfort
airy, clean, warm, ineXpressibly whole
some. And never in the world is she
so engaging as when she ministers
to a mans hunger. Truthfully, some
times, when she comes to me out of
the DINNER light of the kitchen into
the radiance of the table with a plate
of mullins, it is as though she and
the mullins are a part of each other,
and that she is really offering some of
herself. And down in my heart L
know she is doing just that.
This lifelike glowing picture of wo
man in her best and highest estate,
pleasing as it is, would be sad if we
could think it a jissolving view The
statistics so far compiled by the men
and women appointed to investigate
and report as to female labor in the
great increases in the number of wom-
en- employees in nearly every line into
which woman has found her way. The
sociolOgist thinks the figures show that
the greater labor opportunities now
open to women account for large part
of the increase in the work of divorce
courts. But that sets us to wondering
whether such woman as Harriet, with
husband so appreciative of her as
the man who sets her to such pretty
picture before our eyes. ever thinks
of divorce. She might make $40 week
at work outside of home, but we draw
from the picture that she is getting a
great deal more than that now, ard
that her work is yielding her pleas
ure and browning her with a glory
store, office or factory. For we are
thinking now of Harriet as she is de-
scribed to us, woman in the prime
of life.
The worst thing about Industrial
ism as it touches womankind is that
it absorbs so many whe1. they are yet
too young to know what will be the
ideals of their later life, what are the
ideals of every good woman's life when
she grows conscious of the dignity or
ed as to purpose by the misfortune of
being nearly turned aside, or turning
themselves aside, from those occupa-
tons and wholesome domestic pleas
ures in which woman develops
along her highest lines. Some of them
find their way back, the call of nature
rising loud above the roar of trade and
traffic We know now how many may
return. The statistics do not tell us
hat But we need no statistics to
assure us that such a wholesome soul
as Harriet, having come into her in
heritance, will not leave it for $40
week. And in spite of statistics, in
spite of jeremiads, and of the louder
cry of the city's erotics and neuro-
Harriet is still the type of the average
ties in penny editions, we believe that
woman of this happy land.