Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-18
AS THOUGH A MAN COULD
EVER PAY FOR THESE THINGS!
In Which the Editor Humby Attempts Reply Reader
Who Objects to Being Meal Ticket-Uar and
Women No,o and Then Figure in the Anscer

ESoLLow1NG are paragraphs re
= printed from three letters ad
dressed to the editor of this page b,
. man reader signing himself zone o.
the Fools:
When the ladies 60 to work want
them. II 1t is possible for them to do
30, to forget that they are women.
Nov most of them seek to get by"
think of doing their work efficiently.
Very few are willing to better their
understanding of life by hard work.
They are great on dances. but slackers
handclasps and artificial physical
beauty are their weapons in the battle
Of life, not hard work. If all women
must work and only a few men are
soon see an end to the demand for
"women's rights for they'll grow
tired of standing in street cars. soilng
their pretty hands and abandoning
totally the life Of anarchistic gayety
which they really prefer. That is
why I am in favor of votes for
women" as we'll as jobs for them, be-
cause I know once they get real
taste of what they are demanding
they'll beat a straight retreat.
Certain female spiders eat the
males who have courted them success
fully. It's womans instinct. you
see, to exploit the male. He becomes
her meal ticket at least 1t was so
before the war and will be again as
soon as the men return.
Men should awaken to the fact that
woman is no goddess. She Is the
greatest hypocrite imaginable, for she
Is not essentially different from man,
but poses constantly as something set
aside, apart by the gods.
OF course | realize there are eN-
ceptions to the general rule. My wife:
who died three years ago, was one OF
the exceptions. My sister Is another.
Nv mother, who died when | was four
years old, never danced. rouged or
went to cabarets. or course she was
another exception. But | have known
very few other women like them. and
we always judge the world by our
own experiences.
I would like to make an answer on
some of these points.
TN THE first place, my friend, who
i owns up TO thirty ears. I would
like to say I find all people on the
whole marvelously good For in
stance, because I have watched a
great army of young men clock watch
ers year after year, I would not
dream of saying all young men think
only of getting out and away from
the office at 3 O'clock Because I
have seen boys of twenty-five years Of
age pour themselves into coats three
sizes too small for them and men of
thirty-five with little waXed tooth.
pick mustaches, and then again
youth trying desperately to get an
coat of tan on one days
trip to the shore I have not decided
al men are exceedingly vain and
foppish. Because ! have sat by the
hour and listened to man regale me
with conversation about himself I
nave not gone out in the garden ann
iecided all of his brothers were ego
lists.
Because I have seen the sweetest
yirl in the world bury her whitest
lream when man who had gone
lround with her for four years
vent away without asking her to
marry him, 7 have tried to turn
nv face to the stars. Because
through hundreds of letters from
girls / have discovered utter un-
faith in young men who go from
home to home telling in each place the
same story of love, l have not called
men hypocrites Because I have seen
men with the hail-fellow-well-met
ace to the world bully their wives
md finally leave them, I have merely
,itten my lips. Because 7 know young
nen who will do everything to help
vim the war except take gun and go
,ver there and fight. have not passed
Judgment on the others.
r KNOW all these things. But I
l know more. These, the things !
rave spoken of, are the flotsam and
etsam of life, some reclaimed. some
,eyer so. They are the floating things
erriblv apparent because they are on
mn. The real current of life. the fine,
river flowing strong with
The energy of people who love and
work and fight and know nothing OF