Omaha daily bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 187?-1922, 1910-06-26
WHY SHOULD WOMEN FEAR?
Nebraska Census Incident Prov Ol1es
Remarks By Mere
Man,

1t has remained for a Nebraska woman,
head of the normal department in a col
lege, and therefore, presumably, a person
of mature years and more than common
intelligence, to defy the United States gov
eminent by declining to tell the census
enumerator her age. and persistng in this
refusal So firmly that as a result she has
been indicted by the grand jury.
Just what she has been indicted for does
not appear-contempt of the government,
perhaps, and contempt was probably what
she felt at what seemed to her like an I'M
warranted prying into her private affairs.
What business was it of the United States
how old she was, anyway, she doubtless
thought. And by what right did it send
an impertnent whipper-snapper around to
ask her such intimate personal questions
and to demand information which she had
withheld from even those Of her nearest
and dearest who did not have access to
her family Bible?
There are people so constituted that they
have no comprehension of the sacredness
OF statistics, and doubtless this Nebraska
woman is one of these. She probably does
not realize, Notwithstanding her high po-
sition as an educator, that the entire cen
sus machinery would be disorganized and
It's results incomplete and therefore unsat-
isfactory IL the number of her years on
earth were not Incorporated therein. She
does not understand that she cannot live
to herself alone and keep her own secrets,
but that she must disclose to Uncle Sam
anything he wants to know in the way of
figures. Uncle Sam has a passion for
figures, and will not be denied when he
starts out to collect them
The Nebraska lady is the only one who
has had the courage TO persist in a de-
fiance of his prying propensities, but doubt
less good many people secretly hope that
she may win in her contention with him
before the court. For an astonishing num-
Der of persons, men and women, married
and single, object to a stand-and-de deliver
demand for the number of years they have
lived.
1t Is not that they have any hope, or
even any desire of appearing younger than
they are. II they have normal intelligence
they know that years tell in face and form,
and that most Of the people who know
them can make very close estimate OF
their age; 1t is simply that by tradition
they have come to regard this bit OF knowl-
edge as exclusively their own. and by in
stinct they prefer not to dwell upon their
passing years-having achieved in them
perhaps, less than they had hoped-and not
to call the attention of others to them
1t is rather a queer within, this reticence
IN regard to age, but it is so general that
custom has come to respect it as it does
the similar secretlveness concerning ones
Income. 1t is so well understood that men
and women beyond the years OF youth must
not be asked to tell their ages or how
much money they have to live on thai
when some rude person breaks over the
rule 1t causes shock of surprise and in.
disnation Ii is no wonder, therefore, wher
an Official person comes around and delve.
into the intimate family history that 8
share of this disgust is occasionally visited
upon him. II is hard for some people tC
learn that there is no knowledge which /.
all their oWn.-Indianapohs star