Evening star., 1925-03-22

~ CUNT IOLSIOl. invited 10
lecture in the United States
before audiences largely of
women. gave as d reason for
refusing that he had always
held three things highly foolish:
Useless travel, playing cards and
talking to women
Ta-s-ing to" not with" women.
motto. The great Russian could
hardl2 have written Anna Kare-
nina" one of the profoundest studies
OF womans nature that we have, had
he never talked with the Annas and
their sisters!
But, as it is, Tolstoi attacks in his
remark d widespread and flourishing
American activity. Talking to wom-
en- is a business in this country. and
listening by women is an organized
occupation. Is it all foolishness, as
Tolstoi declares? Are women worth
talking to? If they are not. sooner
or later the bottom is going to drop
out of a big national industry, for to-
,day the major part of the speakers
of the country depend on women for
their audiences. And these speakers
run into many hundreds-men, wom
en-usually college people, often of
more or less professional achieve
ment-giving the bulk of their time
and strength to talking. They train
for the work and enroll themselves
FOR the practice with agencies estab
lshed for the purpose of handling
them, and their clienteles are built up
like those in other professions.
* x x
AS for the women, they are organ
ized locally and nationally to listen.
There is hardly "A community too
small TO have a group of organized
listeners woman's club-a branch
of this or that society" or associa-
ton. The highest ambition of these
groups is to have somebody come to
talk" If they are rich and exclusive,
it must be the celebrity of the hour
whether that be author, painter. poll
, tician or visiting foreigner. In the
years since the war it has been the
last, and women's clubs from New
York to San Francisco have strained
their resources to bring on" men
and women who have hardly made
speech in their lives. to talk to them
often in a voice that could not be
heard beyond the fifth row-of things
in which they were little interested
or concerned, because the owner of
the voice was a famous foreigner
somebody.
1t was such groups of women who
two years ago paid "Margot" As
quith a thousand dollars a night
most of them detested without know
ring quite why. 1t was a pity, for
they vented so much to be enthu-
siastic over her and so many of them
did not dare confess they were not,
But 1t is not the famous who do
most of the talking. The women can
not often afford them. The groups
usually are listening to local speak
erS-men and women who travel a
district-a State-in the interest of
causes, of education, of various forms
of propaganda, organizing, exhort-
ing, raising funds.
K x
The big corporations take hand
in catering to their eagerness to lis
ten, and through the Middle West
particularly you will ruu-into elab-
crate free lectures with moving pic
lures and music accompanying them
really sound. sparkling, useful, talk
and illustratiou-givcn to the com
munity by a big generous and shrewd
corporation, intent on elevating folks
to the point where they will buy more
Of their goods! The smallest town
does not escape them. Getting up
meetings for these peripatetic advo-
Gates of everything under the sun
seems to be the speciality of a few
women. They have a talent for it
and have to exercise it, SO that speak
ers arriving on even short notice find
audiences waiting for them.
X x x
When one comes to the larger
towns, $4,000. $4,000 to 100. 000-the
listening groups multiply dozen a
day at the least, as one can see from
the club column or page of the daily
paper; and then there are always
numbers of women who make it a
matter of pride to hear as many diff
ferent speakers as the day permits.
They hurry from one group of listen
ing women to another-less concern
ed about the subject than the fame
Of the name of the speaker. Music
overlaps politics; mysticism, domestic
economy bewildering hodge -podge
If ideas they must carry home at
AiShk.