The Birmingham age-herald. [volume] (Birmingham, Ala.) 1902-1950, 1915-04-16
DISCIPLINE VS.. MYSTERIES
BY ADA PATTERSON

you are going to have lot of trou-
ble,' said the wife of the mayor of
Philadelphia to 200 presidents who were
hanging upon her words. Presidents of
womens clubs, 1 hasten to explain.
you will have women from all over
the United States when the general fed
GRAFTON of women's clubs meets here
next year" she said to the feminine
New Workers. "All will be members of
clubs, but some Will be disciplined mem
bers and some not Some won't know
that 1t is a serious matter to lose their
badges or to leave them in their dress
suit cases or on top of the dressing
tables. Some will think you are fussy
If you expect them to be prompt at the
meetings, and that you are fiends of
you close the doors upon the late COM
ers when the rooms are full. Your chief
problem will be to place 1000 women
in the front row. At the Cincinnati bien-
NAL a woman who couldn't get seat in
the front row went into Mysteries"
The tears and tumults of members of
the board of lady managers of the
Worlds fair at Chicago lit was still
the custom to classify certain women
as ladies at that time) are still green
in the memories of persons who have
a habit of remembering unpleasant
things. I hope nothing of the kind will
happen, at least publicly, at the general
federation next year. There is no rea-
son for hope, because between that time
OF crude display of emotion and the
date of the convention of 1900 club
women in New York next year., have
lain three years of going to school.
Yes, of going to school in women's
clubs For it is going to school, school
from which some disgrunted and dis
affected women drop out and refuse
ever torture as bad boys run away
from school and never come back. On
the other hand. club life is school from
which some are graduated only to take
one post graduate course after another.
Some rebel against the discipline of
women's clubs and become greater
cyclists than they were before they
essayed getting on with other women
in organizations Some accept the dis
ciplineiand learn, though otter by pain
full means be it confessed, the diff
cult lesson of working with and in
the mass.
Last week saw New York million
a1ress stand for two and half hours dur
ing the progress of that marvellous last
word in motion pictures, 1.-THE Birth of a
Nation" That woman had Just cause for
veXation. There had been mistake about
the order for her seats. Whether her Sec
rotary had made it in sending the order
whether the man who sits on stool be-
fore the box office window of the theatre
had made it, no one could find out nor
did it much matter. The fact was that
the house was full and there wasn't a seat
left for her. If she had walked out in the
dudgeon no one could just have blamed
her. She had set aside this evening in her
crowded life to enjoy the mighty moving
spectacle, and that someone's blunder had
robbed her of the privilege was cause for
displeasure.
What, think you, that woman did? She
stood for two and a half hours and
watched the performance. She made the
best of a bad situation and that with no
waste of her vitality in useless emotion
or in superfuous words. The blunder had
been made and all the words in the Brit
ish Encyclopedia would not have placed
an orchestra chair at her disposal A
quarter of a century ago she would have
swept from the theatre, herself a living
picture of My Lady Disdain. She is of
imperious nature Great wealth has not
curbed that trend of her nature. but
career as a club woman has. She has
learned to yield to imperative necessity
If not with smiling grace at least in ST.