The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1916-1920, 1919-05-25

A MELIA f. BARR, who died on
/ \ March 10, 1919, was a woman of
great bravery and inexhaustible courage,
whose own achievement in providing for
herself and her family entitled her views
on such subject as Women IN Business
TO respect. A sketch of her extraordinary
career appeared in Books and the Book
World for March II, 1919. We venture
to believe that even those who entirely dis
sent from Mrs Bars statements will
find them interesting and uttered with a
crispness characteristic of her as woman.
-EDIToR Books and the Book World.
Copyright. 1919, by D. Appleton d Co.
7 HAD a letter this morning from a
L woman far off and not known, who
saws: "Dear Mrs. Barr. / would have all
the children 1 could have if you, or any
one, could promise me they should all be
girls. have three boys already and do
not see how they are going to hold their
own or make living unless they descend
to the toughest and hardest manual labor.
Women will crowd them out of the pro-
fessicns in q few years, as they have al
ready done out of stores and Offices"
This is the burden of her complaint and
/ began first to consider what kind of
women made themselves so offensive in
the labor market to their sister women. In
the main they doubtless come from that
class who call themselves New Women
and who would like to obliterate all dis
tinctions of sex and sex privilege, whether
in politics or labor.
II.
To my mind the number of married
women who have abandoned their homes
and gone into the labor market on the
plea Of helping their husbands is the
worst phase of this condition. Many of
these women have good husbands and
good homes and have not decent excuse
for the perjury of their marriage vows.
They care not for that; they dishonor
their husbands in the estimation of all
who know them-lay him open to the
proverb of "the gray mare being the bet
ter horse" and insensibly rob him of all
ambition. Women Of this kind are one
of the most dangerous signs of the times.
They are the fringe of that red flag of
license which is already flying so inso-
lently in our midst.
To obliterate all the differences between
the work of the sexes will not result In
the elevation but in the lowering Of the
human standard. Men must be men and
women must be women. An epicene sex
without the strength Of manhood or the
tenderness of womanhood would be one Of
those things which the world could not
and would not stand. Women who have
good husband and good home-however
humble-should be content Herewith. 1t
is probably quite as much or more than
they deserve.
And nothing is more certain than that
married women who refuse maternity or
NEGLECT their children in order to go into
the labor market make a mistake closely
bordering on crime. They swagger to the
front in vanity, selfshness or greed, and
surely in insolent disregard of their vowed
duty; and they are neither needed nor
wanted. They cease to be lovable, helpful
women and they can never learn to be men.
Moreover all who employ them are rec
reant or careless of their social and ma
tional duty. For consciously or uncon-
sciously such women are carrying out the
Socialists hatred of home and the family
bond by sacrificing both to their individ-
nal pleasure. Sparta did that act OF ma
tional suicide. She abolished the home.
Children, all alike, belonged to the State.
Every individual went in for personal eff
feiency," and Sparta has righteously per-
ished from the face of the earth, leaving
-. 20 Lo- nation Iitv behind her