Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1915-02-04
Motherhood One Great
Passion of Women
BN DOROTHY DIN


4 The artist has drawn for you on
this page a tender and suggestive pic
ture showing how, from the cradle TO
the grave. motherhood is the one
great passion of women,
We have first the little girl, herself
mere baby. cuddling her doll
through sheer instinct of maternity,
Just as you have watched your own
little girl dong with her Christmas
dollie-nature preparing her for the
little ones that long years hence she
is TO sing and Groom over.
Next is the woman to whom her
husband. larger than she is, older
than she is. perhaps twice as wise as
she is, is still her biggest baby to be
petted and fused over, and spoiled
ana scolded, always her baby depen-
dent on her. no matter how great and
strong he is to the balance of the
world
Last, we have the old woman, who
has mothered so many babies that the
crooks of her arms form q cradle
of themselves, holding to her withered
breaAt her grandchild, her facce lit up
by that radiance of softness and gen.
tleness that makes the homeliest wo-
man beautiful when she looks at a
baby.
This great maternal passion is the
most wonderful thing in nature. II
is not only what gives women the
strength and courage to hand on the
torch of life from generation to gem
GRAFTON without counting the cost to
themselves in suffering and death, but
1t is what gives them the patience and
the love to bear with the infirmities
a,.d the weaknesses of humanity.
Glory of Mother Love Saves Lives of
Countless Babies
If ii were not for this glory of
mother love through which a woman
sees her own children transiigured
babies would die like flies. 1t is only
a mother who can hang with tireless
devotion over the cradle of sicllly,
fretting infant, grotesquely ugly, with
its too big head hanging from wob-
bly, neck, and see in it something for
which it is worth while to sacrifice
every comfort and pleasure. Yet such
children as these-children that any
hireling would let die-have grown up
to be the very flower of manhood and
womanhood. thanks to the mothers
who saved them at their own expense.
1t is this passion of motherhood
that enables 4 woman to see beauty
in her scrawny and frail baby and
literally mother it back into health
that also enables her to be blind to
the moral deformities of her child,
and TO behold virtues in it where
others see only vices. 1t is the knowl-
EIDE that mother still believes in him,
that mother has kept the lamp burn
ing in the window for him, that has
lighted the way to reform for many
a prodigal. 1t is motherhood, with its
ineXhaustible love and its comforting
IL, Col 1,
world from despair, and made men be-
lieve that there must be God since
He made mothers.
1t is the motherhood of women that
, explains the strange phenomena we
so often see in domestic life of a
, great-souled woman sacrificing her
self to a weak and worthless man. II
is often contemptuously said that the
less worthy of love a man is the more
some woman seem sto care for him,
and that no wives are so devoted and
so faithful as those of drunkards.
''Weakling Man Appeals to the Eter-
nal Mother in Woman
The reason of this is that the weak
ling man appeals to the eternal
mother in the woman. Her love passes
from that of the wife to that of the
mother. The man ceases to- be her
husband, her mate, and becomes her
; child, her helpless, dependent baby,
anu Sne Coulu HO lhOIS turn lltl pdSN
upon him than she could leave her
little babe alone to the cruel mercies
of the world.
In her own soul she may despise
the weakness of the man who cannot
resist temptation. She may be filled
with contempt for him who is so cow
ardly he lacks the grit and courage
to stand up and fight his own battle
of life. She may blush with shame
for him who clngs to woman s
| skirts. but stronger than any Of these
lis the instinct of nature to mother
him Just because he is weak and cling
. ing and dependent.
And it is q good thing for the strong
/ man as well as the weak man that this
is true of women, because the mother
t lin them enables them to forgive to
: men many a fault and stumble that
> the wife would never forgive the hus-
3 band, and that men never forgive to
women.
: Mothers Needed in Politics to Put
an End TO Child Labor
Those of us who believe in suffrage
for women believe that the most valu-
able gift that women will bring to the
service of their country. when they
are permitted to serve it, this passion
of motherhood. We believe that we
need mothers in politics, that the
whole human race is crying to be
mothered. We believe that when wo-
men have vote there will be no more
child labor; that the life of a baby
! will be thought to be as valuable as
: that of pig, and that millions will
not be spent for the conservation of