Forest City press. (Forest City, Potter County, D.T. [S.D.]) 1883-19??, 1914-03-20
And Then 5000 Club Women
Made Their Cities Fit
to Live I'm.
where THEY DO THINGS

Very few people realize that there is
On organization of over 1000. GOO wo-
men throughout the country Who are
members of wolnen's clubs. organized
to shape legislation and draft laws for
the Improvement and betterIuent OF the
moral and social side OF life. They have
accomplished great things. The fol-
lowing. quoted from Pictorial Review.
gives some small idea OF What has been
done:
You know when the man kept
house? Remember the dust on the
piano. he beds unSpread. the piles of
unwashed dishes? Dear me-. nearly
everything wrong and awry! Then II
woman enters. Before her gloves are
or. the window shades are jerked i'll
place. With her hat pins in her mouth
she is Strengthening the table cover.
And as soon as she can get her sleeves
rolled UP. the hot water is running in
the kitchen sink. This is the touch of
a woman's hand. And half AN hour
later. the man h made all the disor-
der and "didn't see anything the mat
ter. has settled down to soothed COM
fort with. well. this is better
They ave to be handled like that.
Just so they are being shown now
about their city keeping. This is the
age when we are hanging up the
broom. The u cleaner is at III
door. 1t s~ymbolizes the transition from
woman power to machine power in
housework. With many d inven-
lions to help her. the housekeeper who
used to toll from sun to sun and then
have much that was never done. gets
her home tasks finished now early in
the afternoon. But she doesn't then
put on a white apron n sit down In
a rocking chair with folded hands. In
stead. she goes to the meeting OF the
WOman'S club.
"There was once a mayor of New
York who lighted his cigar with a pc
tition presented to him by a woman's
organization. A mayor wouldn't do
that any more. He might possibly lose
it or delay it or refer 1t to some one
else to get rid of. But anything that
a woman's club has to say to a city
executive today is at least received
with gracious diplomacy. Looking
across his roll-top mahogany desk, he
sees the Third House AS a power to be
reckoned with.
"The place of assembling of the wom-
ans club may still be somebody's front
parlor on Main street or it may have
outgrown domestic hospitality. as so
many of the Women's organizations
have done within the past 10 years.
Alva. Okla, has given over to it's wom-
en- the third floor Of the Commercial
club. The city of Tampa. FLA. appre-
ciating it's civic ho~usekeepers' services.
has presented them with a clubhouse
in a city park. The Denver women
have built for themselves a $4,000
Headquarters. The Ebell clu house
in Los Angeles is one Of the most beau
tiful buildings in the city. The Chica-
go Woman's club and the Woman's
City club of Chicago each have a suite
of offices on Michigan avenue. the
maintenance of which costs thousands
of dollars a year. These and scores of
similar club Headquarters throughout
the country have become much more
than places for pink teas and Browning
papers They are today actually cd
ministrative offices in city affairs that
rank we'll up in Importance witt the
city hall. The woman's club has found
its work. 1t is deftly transforming the
man-made municipality.
Right above the seat you occupied
in the street car this morning. is a sign
scarcely noticed it. The woman's club
in your town put it there. At least I'm
sure enough they did. For / know some
999 other towns through the United
States where they have hung up that
neat municipal motto. "IIxpectorating
on the floor of this car forbidden" This
at first. was "A woman's notion that
was very hard to get into other muni-
cipal heads. In New York, where the
innovation pioneered. whenever the
women would mention it publicly. some
one would write to the
about their meddlesome Interference
with the liberty OF the free born Ameri-
can citizen. This went on for eight
Years until the dawn of a bright idea.
The women took up a strip of mating
from a city street car and had a bac-
teriologist count he germs. There were
millions: so that at last a hating board
of health agreed to take steps for the
protection of the public health by the
curtailing of the splitting privilege. The
Pittsburgh women had to talk about
this simple sanitary measure fully 10
years before they secured it.
The Boston women accomplished a
like education Of their community in
six years and the indianapolis women
in three years. SO the ordinance went
from the Atlantic to the Pacific coast.
The Seattle women. ] believe. had only
to say they wanted it and an obliging
city council agreed. why yes. certain
ly.' And it's like that now in any city"
Three Strokes by a Man in Yellow.
nh t1.,v g l-.r -.