The Birmingham age-herald., 1915-10-18

| With the present election at hand, a piece of work man gallantly elects to 1 be his own, we glance around to find
 on this mundane sphere what really Is
 mans work. and also to find what are | mems pleasures
 l First and foremost mans greatest
 pleasure Is the mad persuit of money, ! irrespective of any and every thing else l in life. probably secondly is mans de- sire to hold the right to vote, though | it is not always his greatest pleasure
 to use it, and in most of these United
 States it is in this field he desires to
 exclude the women.
 | He desires to head the big institu-
 tions of learning and boss the muni- cipal work, and why? Because he con-
 siders this his particular province and
 God given right; then he makes the
 laws and enforces them, though woman | is forced to obey.
 1 This. in 6 way covers the average
 mans desire and work. Now count his pleasures. He lowers the standard of the theatre, because the stage must
 cater to the tired business man" with nonsense and chorus of pretty girls. He patronizes such movies as the Char 1 lie Chaplin variety and commercializes the cheapest melodrama for profit
 He makes prize fighting possible, and
 to some men can be attributed the vice problems of our cities.
 He begrudges equal pay for equal work while he smilingly offers woma n "chivalry" to appease his conscience. And how few of the stronger sex are interested in the really uplifting and cultural side of the work and pleasure of the world. The audiences that patron ize the great problem plays and Shakes perian dramas on the stage today are largely composed of women.
 Women's clubs have the monopoly on any study of cultural ma ature, the field of teaching is fast giving away entire lly to women. Lectures are attended al-
 most entirely by women, unless they are of political nature. In our own city it Is pitifully apparent. The lecture course of the Lyceum is attended most fly by women, especially the series at the end, with such a master as Mir. Griggs as the leader.
 Many women are forced to miss much that Is given in this line because the husband is bored to death by that high brow stuff"
 At the recent exquisite reading of Mrs. Beecher the men were so greatly l in the minority as to be conspicuous, and the men really had no legitimate excuse, as the Drama league courts male members, and any man can leave his office in the afternoon during baseball season to See a game.
 The field of music is probably the greatest sufferer from mans lack of desire for aHsthing cultural. In speak ing of this to one of Birmingham's most | gifted musicians, Mrs. William Gussen | she said: Why do men glory in their l ignorance of music? Why does 1t malse them so happy to be able to say, Oh don't know anything at all about
 music. I leave that to the women folks. 1 They leave many other things along asthetic lines to the women folks. b ut ! they never seem to boast of itOlike they do about music.
 If one should ask a man his opin- 1! ion. about some great masterpiece in 1 literoture and he has to own up that he
 knows nothing about it, he is at least l embarrassed and, as n rule. will inves- 1 tigate the subject at his earliest op- portunity But just ask him about a
 masterpiece in music and he proudly
 asserts that he has never heard of such l a thing, and in speaking of 1t will all
 ways very carefully mispronounce both
 the name of the composer and the com- position in order to convince one that
 it is all Greek to him.
 | "Of course music is comparatively 2 1 new art. and we can't expect too, much l but we can't help wishing that devel- opment might move along d little faster ] Concerts for the women who have all
 ready learned to love the best in music
 are helpful and We can't have too many