Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-11-12
WOMANo SOCIETY
SEEKS To REMOVE
D|oCORD IN HOME
EASTERN MONTANA ITO BENEFr' FROM NEW p0AER pR0JENHN Won
Mrs. Harvey w. Wiley Claims
Wife Is Husbands
Equal.


Equal.
Mrs. Harvey w. Wiley. wife of the
former chief of the United States bu-
reau of chemistry, thinks that smok-
ing is abominabie. Yet she upholds
the right of a girl to smoke" says
the New York World. She is fighting
for the equality Of women in all
things. She is a militant feminist.
She is the mothe of two boys. 8 and
10 years old, and it is her greatest
ambition that they take a leading part
in Christianizing the world. But she
believes in the basic right of all indi-
vlduals to shape their own destinies.
and she believes that girls as well as
boys are individuals.
Just now she is one of the leaders
in an organization. the object of which
is to remove the last remaining dis
examinations against women in Aneri-
can homes.
The organization is the Home-Nak-
ers' Council of the National Womau's
party. This party is composed 1T
women who are not aiming to enter
professions, but who want the righr
to continue as homemakers on an
equal footing with men.
7 had supposed" Wesley MeCor-
mick told Mrs. Wiley, that women
were rather more important" she
answered, but their rights in many
states are still negligible. / am not
speaking merely of their property
rights, although the legal discrimina-
tons against them in this respect
make it impossible in many places for
them to function as they should. I
talked with a woman from the South
the other day. She is happily mar
ried and very much in love with her
husband, but he doesn't know that she
is a person, and she could not make
him think so except by nagging him
or starting a fight. Because legally
she is not a person. She had an es-
tate before she was married valued at
100000. She had planned for years
TO devote this land to a specific
charitable purpose. The other day
her husband came home to dinner and
nonchalantly told her that he had sold
it. lie had a right to under the law.
In that state, in spite of the nine
teenth amendment, a married women
is still very much of a slave. Her
work. her resources and her lifelong
ambitions count for nothing.
Says Husband Has Advantage
But even in states where property
rights seem to be equal, it doesn't
necessarily follow that women have
achieved equality. In these states a
may leave her home. enter a
trade or profession and have full say
as 70 what she, shall do with her
salary. Her husband can't take that
i mean the money which she has
earned outside the home. But how
about the money she has earned in
side the home? If the man dies. the
can command her legal share
in his estate. But if he lives. she
can't even command a salary. On a
large percentage Of the American
farms today it is still the ridiculous
practice for the wife to ask her hus--
band for money with which to buy a
new hat.
TO manage an enterprise properly
the manager must have a very definite
idea Of the financial resources at
hand. A home-maker should have
either a stated allowance or a definite
percentage OF her husbands income"
1t is not any personal discomfort
which has brought Mrs. Wiley into the
feminist movement. She is there be-
cause she has strong convictions con-
corning things from which she does
not personally suffer. That women
should have the right to vote was one
of her lifelong convictions.
Education is at present the main
reliance of the Home-Makers' Council.
There is no talk as yet of a strike of
farmers wives or of any dramatic as
sertion of woman's equality. From
Mrs, Wiley's standpoint at least the
does not contain the slight
est element of a~ntagonism to men.
Our object" she said, lis to re-
move the elements of discord from the
home, Marriage between equals must,
" SIC ynr- n{Y,. - -
promise. If harmony is to be achieved
it must be through complete equality
or not at all. So long as rights are
undetermined they will be fought for.
The harmony based on authority has
passed forever. Our real aim is more
than arr assertion of individual rights.
1t is the assertion of the most sacred
right known to human history-the
right of a woman and a woman to be-
come completely united in love.
Cause of Discord
ibid you ever stop to think" Mrs.
Wiley added. that millions of homes
today are cursed with diseord simply
because the personality of the mother
has been suppressed? Take almost
any case of a completely dominated
woman and you will find a woman who
is making life unbearahie. She quits
being a person and becomes a profess
sional mother for life. She babies her
children. They are her life and she
sees her life departing from her. she
struggles to hold them as babies when
they should be developing manly char
instead. She undermines
their self-reliance. 1t is up to them
to rebel and break her heart or
to ,succnmb and to 20 down in utter
Either way. such a moth
er is hopeless.
What we should aim at" Mrs.
Wiley continues, SIS not to free wom-
from the great work of bearing and
rearing children but to save them from
destroying themselves in the process,
There is no reason why any normal
persons life should end at 50. 4
woman at 90 should be looking ahead"
uNCOVERiNG ANCIENT CITY
American scientists have renewed
the work of excavating the ancient
city of Sardis in Asia Minor. This
work was commenced several years
ago and was interrupted BY the war
An advance marty is now ut work and