The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1911-05-22
EVENING CHAT
BY RUTH CAMERON.

You all probably read in the news
papers a few months ago of the sensa-
tional and tragic shooting of David
Graham Phillips, the novelist, by a
Semi-sane crank.
Have you also, wonder, read any
of the stories and essays of this au
thor, which have been published in
various magazines since his death?
III you haven't, l think you should
you" meaning all American women
especially wives and wives-to-be.
I'll tell YOU why.
David Graham Phillips had evident
Iy been studying the question, "Why is
marriage a failure?" very deeply. and
he had come to a conclusion. This
conclusion is set forth in all of his
later works. Whether it is right or
wrong, I don't know, but it certainly
Is interesting and suggestive. This is
the sum of it:
are not doing their part in the partner
ship of married life. The average wom-
an considers that she is bestowing a
sufficient boon upon a man in marry
ing him and does not realize that she
has just as definite obligations after
marriage as he.
This, according to Mr.. Phillips, is a
totally wrong point of Wow. He con-
siders that the woman should go about
her business of running the home as
smoothly and successfully as possible,
of getting the greatest possible eff
cheney out of the money supplied, of
being a first-class mother, and as at
tractive to him as possible just as seri-
ouSIy as he goes about the business of
earning a living, and that failure on
her part to do her duty IL just as flag
rant as a failure on his part to sup
port her. @
Here are few quotations which
illustrate the point lof view.
at is painful to an American girl of
any class to find that she has to earn
her position as wife. The current
theory, a tradition from an early and
mountaineering day, is that the girl
has done her share and more when she
has consented to the suit of the ardent
male and has intrusted her priceless
charms to his exclusive keeping. Ac-
cording to that same theory it is the
husband who must earn his position,
must continue to earn it,
THE woman, emerging from a girl
hood of alarm lest she should never be
able to achieve the married state and
finding herself actually Mrs, feels
that she has completed her life work.
She fancies she need do nothing more.
She begins to relax, to wane, to go to
seed mentally and physically, none the
less though she conceal mental deter1-
grafton under the cheap and lazy 'cul-
tion under the paint, powder and
dressmakers' devices for taking up
decently appearing. body:
After speaking of the difficulty the
uncovered middle class girl has of
finding a worth while husband. Mr..
Phillips concludes:
'0The remedy? The independence of
the middle class girl-her economic
independence. Not by means of the
dowry or of the divorce with alimony;
for the lowered or aim oniously d.
vorced woman only fancies she is indie
pendent But real independence. abi1-
ity to do things practical, useful, to
perform salable service-that sort of
education will make her fit to marry,
and worth marrying"
Again in his novel Enid" the huS-
band and wife who suddenly discover
after two years of married life that
they do not love each other, are dis
cussing the situation
Saws the man: "'You may not real
ize it, but you are degraded by taking
money you don't earn
"'Ah,' and she laughed in hooking
scorn, you want me to earn my board
and clothes-I-yOur wife
"He smiled amiably. L simply say.
he tossed the end of the finished cigar
out the window and rose, that in the
future I'll expect as good service as I
could get at hotel for the same
money"
Now please do not think that l am
saving that this is the only possible
noint of view on the American mar
rage question. and that the American
wife is always a shirk.
BY no means
You and I and everybody know
plenty of women who bear their nall
and more than their half of the bur-
den.
But that the other kind of woman
exists in the middle class and that the
accusations Mr.. Phillips hurts at her
have at least some truth in them, do
helieye and I contend that his idea of
equal obligations has at least a sug-
gestive germ of thought in it for all
wives and wives-to-be.
FISH KILLED BY DYNAMITE.