San Antonio light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1911-1993, 1923-08-12

!, friend, hath told you Caesar was
ambitions. If it were so, it was
grievous fault, and grievously hath
: Caesar answered it"
~ Antony, TO be sure, was speaking
with the superb irony that makes this
speech eternally memorable.
But upon sober analysis we must
all admit that there is at least as
much truth as sarcasm in the words:
ambition for the affairs of this world
is really a grievous fault, and griev-
ously do we all answer it almost every
hour of our lives.
- Ambition for another world, involv-
ing as it does deep faith and self
90 immolatiOn. is something else again,
.. but only the hundredth woman has
that, and the rest Of us, the ninety
n and nine, are tortured all our days
with vague and disquieting ambitions.
Even envy, restlessne@s, Jealousy
and discomfort, that inevitable quar-
tette of miseries, are all rooted in am
. bition.
"Other women are doing things,
having things, going places" muses.
!. the average woman as she dusts the
living room why not ~
Thwarted Women.
Half my letters are from thwarted,
ambitious women, restless and anx-
ious because they feel that they are
not doing the work they want to do.
and almost every one of them who
has children assures me ferventy that
when her girls grow up they shall
have professions or be taught trades
no matter how rich their father is, or
how little inclination they show to-
ward any sort Of employment.
Fashions in conversation are just
as definite as fashions in skirts ami
it has become the fashion Of late to
. cay Of the small girls:
''Oh, we're going TO teach them
something! They'll be financially indie.
= pendent. A woman who works knows
the value Of money; she makes a bet
: ter wife if she marries, and has an
independent life IL she Doesn't"
"A hundred years ago she would
have been thrown into the river" said
an Americanized Chinese woman to
me one day Of her pretty, sloeeyed,
: sleek-haired daughter. Now she has
a position as a stenographer in the
office of a great insurance firm. J"
Mary and Margaret.
This particular way of putting il
makes one thoughtful. For the diff
ference between the lives of the wom-
en- who stay at home and keep house
and raise babies, and the women wh1
go downtown daily and are thrown
into the river Of office positions, is too
often regarded from twisted point OF
view.
Poor Mary's at home with those
babies" says the superficial observer
casually, "and Margaret is working
and independent"
But almost the opposite is the truth
exeept-except for the financial con
sideration.
Mary is staying at home, and lead
ing woman's natural life, cooking
teaching, bearing and rearing citizen,
for the commonwealth-and not get
ting paid for it!
Margaret is going downtown every
- day to address circulars that nobody
will read, to typewrite letters that
ar will be Cancelled by telephone tomor
row, to discuss senseless and abstruse
things like a half-inch here and there
q on a property line, or the meeting oil
minds" upon an insignificant con
a. tract-and getting paid for it!
Mary works in the woman's world
for nothing.
Margaret works in the mans world
she is just as wholly the slave o.
some man as the most downtrodder
and hard-worked wife could be-but
~, she gets eighteen dollars a week.
At the End OF Ten Years.
~ And Mary still envies Margaret thai
eighteen dollars, although Margaret
has to spend every penny of it OF
laundry, car fare, lunches and board
Margaret, at the end of ten years
has absolutely nothing to show fol
what she is doing, and Mary has {
garden, and two boys and girl, anC
three books full Of snapshots, ant
committee work in the club. and al
the infinite. minute riches of the nor
mally established woman-and still
Mary envies Margaret!
know she does, because she write
me: Il know / could write. / know
] could be an actress. 1 gave up m.
interior decorating when 1 was mar
ried. My sister has become hea
e. nurse in a hospital would so en-
Joy that sort of work. ] want to earl
money. / have to earn money.
must earn money!
There is the core Of it. Money
Money! "Money of my own. None
to spend on the things want. None
enough to feel independe- ="
The Average Office.
II the money question were ono
adjusted, then what a difference W
i, would see between the woman VIII
does her own work and the woma
who goes into the mans world to
his!
Then we would have Mary. seren
!. and self-respecting, plying Margare
Think for a few minutes, you won
en- who long to get out OF the dome
tic atmosphere and stand upon you
own feet, of the average day in ii
= average office.
The idleness, the gossip and man
curing, the brainless underlngs di
tating their endless, unnecessary lie
tiers, the CRIME, the utter s.-3idit