Newark evening star and Newark advertiser. [volume] (Newark, N.J.) 1909-1916, 1913-12-30
Women's Standards Change

fiery furnace of necessity. We are
finding new values, making new ad-
justments."
I'VE are, indeed Mias Valid re-
piled. I'VE are learning more and
more that every advance In democ-
racy brings people nearer together
and that good will between man and
man depend upon respect and rever-
ence. When women share equally
with men the responsibility for right
eousness in government and when
their counsels on matters of public
welfare are given the dignity the bal
lot bestows. there will follow q new
sense of comradeship, q new sense of
fellowship between men and women;
woman will not be the unaelsnowl-
edged power behind the throne-she
will share the throne!"
IT have never been able to see that
women have exerted an unacknowl-
edged power behind the throne in
this country" ! interjected.
That's what makes our history
dull reading compared with that of
| France or of England. And even in
those countries where indirect In
fiuence' was exerted by women, it
was almost invariably by the wrong
women!"
THAT is true, too Miss Valid
agreed Years ago Mrs Snyder
Webster said that American men are
not really good husbands, that they
pet and spoil their women, but that
| they do not permit them to influence
them or to participate in their serious
| affairs. Recently a foreign critic, in
writing his Impressions of the United
| States, said that he could not see that
our women received serious consider
/ tl.nt 1a.. ata a
woman like Jane Addams is respected
and her opinion carries weight. He
thought the mass of American wom-
en- without influence"
yet the judges in New York courts
| have often told me that the most
serious domestic difficulties which
they have to solve result from the
| foreign wife's' sudden realization of
her important status objected
Miss Wald laughed at this first fruit
of the suffrage campaigns. asked
her IL she had found the new ideals of
women had produced any erect on
their desire to marry and make u
home.
mo" she said. at has not changed
their wish to marry but it has
changed their choice of husbands. 1t
| is very interesting to observe this
change in our settlement girls, As a
result of the influences they nave alb
sorbed here, some of them have asked
the men who were counting them GER
tain questions about their past lives
and their fitness for marriage. A
man perhaps would not like 1t and a
girl would refuse him. Later she
would meet some man who UNDER
stood and respected her questions and
liked her the better for them"
In the course of our conversation
expressed my qualification that,
through the radiating influence of the
University Settlement. the feminine
newcomers in our republic are learn
ing the NEW AND ONLY REAL
MORALITY, the morality which re-
jects the ancient falsehood that what
Is poison for the goose is merely pee
cadillo for the gander
$50 many persons do not appreciate
what splendid personalities exist
among our foreign population" Miss
Valid replied.
"There seems to. be a contagious
misunderstanding that the POOR for
eigner is ignorant. Yet anyone with
extended personal acquaintance with
the immigrant knows that, because of
the handicap of ignorance of our lam
guage and customs of our country, in.
tellectual men and women are found
at operating machines. are peddlers,
and are very numerous in the needle
trades M 1904
las an instance of the Intelligence
of some women employed in fac
tories, | must tell you of a young inn
migrant girl who resented the charge
made by a foreign man that America
is materialistic and that Its greatest
names are Rockefeller, Hartman and
Morgan. Those are It's richest men,
the girl replied. but the greatest men
nre Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman
and Edward MacDowellr