Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1931-03-22


biased by any feeling that the tradi-
tional normal life Of the male Is more
satisfying to him than the traditional
normal life of the female is to her. A
man Of average health and talents, with
a good education, fair Job aid q wife
he likes need not be envied by woman
of average health and talents with
good education, enough money TO keep
house on and q husband and children
she likes.
It is true that she has the special
problem Of switching onto some out
side activity when her children no
longer need her undivided attention,
but countless women have proved that
that can be done. The Mrs. Strubes
should have a reasonable chance Of be-
ing happy II they we're leading the
traditional normal life Of a female.
But they aren't, and they aren't be-
cause the Messrs. Strube-neither Will
liam nor Alfred-can't afford it.
He has, as a rule, the Mr.. Strube of
our days, just enough to make his
wife neither a waster or q slattern.
If he Is OF the modern, go-ahead
| type, Mr.. Strube wants to live in q
| clean little apartment in town. 1t Is
near his work, and it has every con-
| venience. But there is not enough space
to raise a family in 1t nor center an
amusing social life around it. It is
! perhaps one in box Of a thousand
like 1t, where an attempt to find con-
genial friend among the neighbors Is
| like looking for q needle in o hay
stack. 1t takes MRS. Strube couple
| of hours to clean it, and after that she
becomes one of the occupationless idlers
one may see any day nosing round the
shops on upper Broadway.
1t Is to her credit II she goes and
| gets herself q Job when that Is her
case. Otherwise, should her husband
| be successful she turns into the kind
| Of wife who after her late thirties gets
sent TO Europe for six months at q
time with suspiciously generous al
lowaI1ces. If her husband is not sue
ceSSful she turns into kind Of human
mole, deep below the light of day, the
earth in its eyes, outside all the best
relations Of humanity. Work Is not
| vanity; 1t is the only way that the
woman has Of hitching onto life.
| II Mr.. Strube Is Of more old-fash-
Toned type they get house and have
children. And maintain that If Mr..
| Strube is only q clerk or q drummer
1 &c
If she lives in Europe she has q squalid
little house with no conveniences. /
don't understand Mr.. Oppenheim's
| cryptic remark: EVEN IL they live
in q town there is q park near for the
baby or babies" People begin to notice
| it If one goes on leaving ones babies
In the park. There Is charwoman,
If not little servant maid" he says,
| and the next sentence runs, AT worst
there are for them four or i've hours
of freedom apart from the necessity
of concentrating upon anything"
wish Mr.. Oppenheim had the chance
Of enjoying the hours of freedom avail
! able to the mother Of even one child
with the aid of "a charwoman, II not
q little servant maid" He would have
so little opportunity Of concentrating
that 1 doubt If he would even be able
to write his books.
| And remember that both Mrs. Strubes
| are precisely In the same case as their
| husbands in regard to anxiety about
| their jobs. If father loses his Job
what is to happen to him and mother
and the children? 1t Is Just as bad for
| Mrs. Strube to think that when she
! is washing dishes as it is for Mr..
Strube to think It over his ledgers or
his samples. 1t is worse to worry about
! something one cannot see and has no
| control over than to worry about q
situation in which one is playing a
! part. She begins to feel anxious about
Mr.. Strube. Is he really doing his best2
Has he really got good stun In htHn7
Isn't it perhaps his fault that he doesn't
| get on?
Dependencel II is what nearly every
\ woman must come TO In her time But
it is not the picnic that Mr.. Oppenheim
| suggests.
sim, there are Mrs. vavasour-s trube
and Mrs. Harrington-Strlbe: There Is
dependence on q rich man. But there
| looks crowded In the season. but that
is a little strip of coast. There Is all
Of Europe behind it, just as there is all
America behind Florida, and most of it
is crowded. And even with these rich
women it Is true that they have no
security OF tenure. The huge capital
fund that would be necessary If they
were to be certain Of their maintenance
does not stay put.
Inc other DAY E woman came to me
to see IL would buy some of her house
linen for my new department. There
were such mountainous quantities of it
and It was Of such exquisite quality that
realized she must have been O mil
lionaireSs, and when said her name
over to myself I realized she had, in
deed, been one, and not so long ago.
But three events had come 10 prize
apart her husband and his money. He
had lost some of 1t in Russia. He had
lost more Of it in investments sponsored
by the crook HAIRY. He had lost the
rest of 1t in the Wall Street crash q
year and half ago.
None Of these incidents Is unique.
One was a historical catastrophe. One
was a triumph Of financial roguery.
One was panic. But history is always
going bad on our hands. Rogues come
up as perennially as daisies. Panics
come In cycles. These things are al
ways pricing people apart from their
money, and they always have done so.
We enormously exaggerate the sta
bility Of our economic system. The
thing is not steady, as a building. It
Is shifting, like the tides.
Human tendency Is to pretend the