The Jeffersonian. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1907-1917, 1914-01-08
TIE Good, the Bod, the OfherJ0Jse
And Fev LQc0njcs ByLAL

ing to the Judge for bread for her
children and herself.
And the answer is: the installment
house has made it easy, with the
1-down-and-25 cts-a-week plan.
And the other part of the answer
is: our women, of every class, have
gone daft on dress and rights
Let US look at another side of the
statistics: it is shown that, where
prohibition" does not prevail, the
saloon is becoming more ornate,
more comfortably furnished and
more seductive to the man who has
to wrestle with a $25 a week family
on a SIS week salary. What the
club is to the rich man, the saloon
is to the poor man of the large cities.
In it he can regale himself with a
five cent glass of beer, in more or
less comfort. Often he can hear
good music, not always from q
graphophone, and he can frequently
get a good substantial meal, with
more or less Of the beer or other
drink, at very moderate sum. He
also is freed from the nagging Of
Disseminated wife, and the fretting
of undernOurished or not properly
fed children, and he is willing to for
get those things for the time, at
least.
Besides her blind, slavish follow
ing of ''the STYLE in the matter of
dress, the moving picture theatre
craze has seized the women of the
middle and lower classes in the big
cities, and here again we come up
to the Municipal and State Stats
hn 0J~iT ioh hoN ho n
beginning in these places, are more
than the police themselves can Crap
pie with. The so-ca1led white slav-
err has seized them for his particu-
lar stamping ground, and if we are
to believe the newspaper stories we
have been RECALLED with, some of
which seem to be backed up by in
disputable facts, it would seem that
no decent woman nor girl was safe
in the semi-darkness of the "mov-
ing picture" theatre.
And then, we come right up to the
crux of the whole matter: if crime
has increased; if more homes have
been broken: if more divorces are
asked for and granted; if more child
rem are being left to be raised" by
the cold-blooded process known as
"charity,'' what of those who have
brought about this state of affairs?
We cannot be blind to the truth
of these things, and there are many
other phases that have not been
touched on: graft IN every part Of
municipal and State administration,
and the whisper has grown uncom-
fortably loud for some of those in
high National places.
Woman's part in the management
Of the country was never greater than
it is nOW-and- she is letting slip
through her fingers, the opportunity
of centuries, to prove it.
Given a home, and the rational
conversation, with the understanding
thought will give her, of the things
which count, would not the woman
of today, collectively, be able to
counterfeit more than half of the in
fuences which have made these con-.
ditions possible? Is it hard matter
to reason it out along that line?
If a woman marries a man with
some other object in view than to
have some one pay her bills, is there
any degradation in serving that man,
in making his home home in every
sense of the word? Is there any
thing degrading in mothering the
children she has brought into the
world, and in making the home the
one place Of attractiveness for them?
Is there anything martyrlike in try
ing to curb the longings for things
"lke other women" when there was